Hologram
by CandyPants
Summary: Roxas is a teenage runaway who finds an unlikely friend in Axel. Axel is college grad who may or may not be Roxas' savior. Xion is the glue as well as the ultimate end. Will this summer on the beach, cigarettes, sunsets, late-night coffee, house parties, and hard drugs reveal all the answers? Sometimes, friendship can end just as quickly as it began. AU. AkuRoku. Roxas-centric.
1. Bones

Chapter One: Bones

Lorde- Ribs

Roxas had a habit of chewing his translucently thin fingernails down to the quick. In fact, this was what he was doing while he was sitting on an isolated park bench in the middle of a vaguely familiar state park he might have visited once on an elementary school field trip. He couldn't quite remember, to be frank. His pale blue eyes squinted in response to pain as he felt a tear at the junction of skin and keratin, and he pulled his index finger out of his mouth to discover bright pink, saliva slicked nail bed. He wiped the spit diluted blood on his pants leg. His mother wouldn't stand for it, his compulsive nail chewing that often left his fingers mangled, and he would have to keep his hands out of sight to avoid a lecture. Are all moms so good at making their children feel two inches tall?

Then again, the growing annoyance in the pit of his stomach at the thought of it was pointless in reality. He probably wasn't going to see her. If all went accordingly, and he intensely wished it would, he would be leaving his pathetic, boring, dull (and every other negative word he could think of) adolescent life behind. The thought caused him to shiver, or maybe that was the wind. He was bundled up on that misty December day, in layers of brand new semi-designer clothing his parents rather informally gave him on Christmas morning two days prior.

He would be turning eighteen years old on February seventeenth. The thought usually excited kids his age, the thought of being able to buy cigarettes, lottery tickets, click the "yes, I am eighteen" button on porn sites truthfully, to gain the ability to vote, to be seen as an "adult" in the eyes of Uncle Sam and the United States government. Roxas simply saw it as another year gone, another year wasted.

He was bored. He was just bored.

Saying goodbye to his house and his bed was as easy as was expected, and his silent goodbyes to his parents were disturbingly painless. The only thing that held any semblance of challenge was saying goodbye to his friends, though he could admit that he wasn't as close to any of them as he was a few years ago. He couldn't remember the last time they had all gotten ice cream.

He took a deep, shaky breath of winter air and pulled up the hood on his jacket. He could barely feel his ears already, and he'd only been sitting outside for thirty minutes. He rose from his park bench, and began to walk at a gingerly pace. There was a labyrinth of dirt trails in this massive park, many of them leading to different places. There was the path that would take you back to the lodge where you could look at uninspiring pamphlets about endangered species of butterflies and the invasion of kudzu and drink from communal water fountains that dispensed untrustworthy, dirt-flavored water. You could head down to the swamp, to shoot some drugs, impregnate a minor, dump a body, or whatever. Some people fancied the nature trail through a damp, lifeless, unvaried southeastern forest. Roxas could only take so many pine trees before he died of boredom. He had taken the trail that led toward the river, though he had to admit that calling it a river was slightly hard-pressed. It was more of an over-sized creek flowing with greenish, glass-like water over sludge covered rocks, swimming with microbial creatures and potential organ-melting parasites. Roxas idly wondered if the questionable water fountains back in the lodge were somehow associated with this radioactive looking waterway.

His slow pace could have been correlated with a suppressed sense of doubt that Roxas had been pushing away with pep talks and a forced sense of courage and fearlessness. Truth be told, Roxas had never done anything quite like this before. He'd barely ever had the chance to breathe a word of this even to himself under the watchful eyes and oppressive thumbs of his mother and father.

By fate or luck, his inner turmoil was interrupted by the sudden realization that he had made it back to the highway. The pavement was daunting to look at when he wasn't in a car, a feeling he hadn't expected. The road was wide, infinite, and silent. He pushed another deep breath in and out, keeping as calm as he could. He had read somewhere that smiling, even if you're unprovoked, will lighten your mood and make you feel better, in the sense of manually altering your psyche. With that though in mind, he shrugged his shoulders to shift the heavy backpack he carried and relieve his shoulders of weight and tension, and began walking down the side of the road, his head and thumb both held high.

He walked like that for several miles, away from his home town of Lake City, South Carolina. He didn't mind the walking (he idly commended himself for the exercise) but he was getting cold, despite the amount of bundling up he had done before he had left his house that morning. It had to have been around one or two in the afternoon now. A few cars had passed him by, barely bothering to slow down. Roxas was reminded of his mother's words of warning about hitchikers; they were unpredictable and dangerous. He wondered if the driver of the last few cars thought of his as unpredictable and dangerous. It was laughable, but it almost made him smile.

As if on cue, he heard another car far down the way. He could just barely see the car headed towards him. Soon he was able to make out the color, which was black, and eventually he was able to make out the make and model, which was an older Jeep Cherokee. As his heart pounded with the same kind of trepidation you feel on the first day of high school that makes you feel as if your breakfast of pop-tarts and chocolate milk would soon be spewed all over campus, he extended his arm and lifted his thumb.

The utility vehicle began to slow down, and Roxas half expected the driver to gently pump brakes, glance at him indifferently, and move along as if there were nothing to see. He was actually surprised when the Jeep slowed down and actually came to a complete halt in the middle of the abandoned highway. The black paint was old, dingy, and covered with brown dust, and the side mirror on the driver's side was missing. The windows had been tinted with half-assed effort, most likely by the driver's cousin or uncle in a makeshift car garage. Though the job was shitty, it was nonetheless effective, and Roxas couldn't actually see the kindhearted driver who had so graciously stopped for him.

Nothing happened for an uncomfortably long moment, and Roxas was unsure of what he was supposed to do in this event. Was there etiquette involved with hitchhiking? Was there a rule book somewhere that he didn't know about? Before his thoughts could get too convoluted, a window was rolled down and Roxas' eyes were introduced to the most genuine curiosity and amusement he had ever seen etched onto a human face. A human face that was also painfully striking and handsome to look at, like the fashion models you see peppered throughout the pages of Vogue that sometimes make you literally sick to your stomach and full of self-loathing. His looks were alienesque in the hick-town, sprawling dead tobacco field setting they were in, and his eyes were a toxic green that Roxas could easily see from across the road. Roxas was sure he'd never met anyone that looked like that before.

Not to mention the shock of unnaturally red hair sticking out in long, messy skewers behind his head. He felt like he could smell the product mingling with grime to get it to stay in that shape.

"Is this the part where I ask you if you want free candy?"

He half-shouted the words over the engine of the car and amount of distance between them. His voice slipped lasciviously from his bemused smirk in an oddly good-natured way. Roxas would remember this later, when he would realize that his first impression of the man was that he was obviously an avid user sarcasm.

"Isn't this what they warned me about as a child? Stranger danger and all that?" Roxas replied.

"Yeah, and now I think this is the part where I assure you that I don't have to be a stranger for much longer."

Roxas almost laughed a little, but out of suspicion and the lack of wanting to come off as the giggling school girl type, he stayed deadpanned.

"Fuck, you know I'm joking, right?"

Without missing a beat, Roxas retorted. "What if you're not? What if you've got some ploy turning over in your mind right now that involves shaving my legs and raping me?"

"Would you gain any sort of reassurance if I promised to use lube?"

"Not really."

"Good. Then get in, sport."

Memories from within his high school reading list materialized in his mind, and he imagined some elaborate story from the past to explain why the guy just used the moniker "sport". Maybe the man was simply really in to Fitzgerald novels.

With a shrug to push away his doubt, he walked across the gray road and opened the passenger door of the Jeep. His nose was greeted with a mixture of cigarettes, body oder, patchouli oil, cheap car fresheners and old fast food bags. There was no music playing from within the dark, warm vehicle. As he climbed into the seat, he rubbed his numb hands in front of the vents and took a brief moment to attempt an inconspicuous glance at his deliverer. He wore stained, fucked up denim on his lower half and what looked like a brand new black wife beater on his upper half. The kind of brand new black that almost looked blue right out of the plastic Fruit of the Loom package. His eyes which had shocked him from a distance before were much more entrancing up close. He imagined that if you stared at them too long and looked away, you would see phantom spots in your vision, a ghost of the toxic green that had burned your retinas before.

"What's your name?" The savior asked once Roxas had shut the groaning car door. The inside was very dark, save for a dim blue glow emanating from the GPS attached to the dashboard.

"Roxas," he replied plainly.

"No last name?"

Roxas took a moment to weigh out whether this stranger should know such information. He saw the digital green clock on the Jeep's console click to 2:14 PM.

"Wade," he responded, still staring at the clock.

"Roxas Wade," the man articulated back to him. His voice held a promise of being very well and able to purr and roll with seductive lilts that Roxas had only heard in high quality downloaded porn.

"What's yours?" Roxas asked politely.

"Axel Payne," he said, tucking a cigarette between his lips and lighting it on cue as if they were in a movie scene. He held the soft pack out to Roxas, the cancer sticks like an offering of friendship. Roxas hesitantly took one of the Newports and hoped he could choke the whole thing down without coughing or getting sick. He wasn't much of a smoker; in fact, this would be the third cigarette he had ever had in his life.

"Want a smoke?"

The first cigarette was fairly memorable and Roxas could look back on it almost fondly. He was fifteen and almost every ounce of his spare time was spent goofing off inside of cars driven by slightly older teenagers that still thought it was cool to call cigarettes "cigs". Today they were in the Sonic Drive-In. Last weekend they were in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and the weekend before that they were behind the do-it-yourself car wash. The slightly older teenagers that his mother would refer to as troublemakers and delinquents were seniors this year, and most of them had this hideously annoying habit of bringing up the fact every time something vaguely nostalgic happened. His mother was surprisingly off the mark about them; these kids actually didn't do much worse than smoke cigarettes, consume copious amounts of caffeine and call each other "cunts".

"Sure, thanks," Roxas responded politely, taking one from the pack of Camel Menthols that was thrust in front of him almost demandingly. He was thankful that no one had handed him a lighter, considering he wasn't entirely sure if he knew how to make one function properly. He'd never had a reason to use one before. As a lit match was jammed in front of his face, he placed the filter between his lips and attempted to puff on the cigarette solely by the force of his lungs. His face scrunched in effort and confusion.

"Suck on it like a straw," the girl holding the match said through giggles. Her face was pale and plain with an underlying air of vanity behind her sloppy eyeliner, Jack Skellington earrings and lackluster blond hair.

Roxas did as he was told and felt smoke fill his mouth. The process clicked suddenly, and he inhaled what smoke he had gathered into his orifice and immediately gagged and coughed.

Sardonic laughter rang like bells throughout the small circle of friends as if they hadn't choked on their first cigarette.

"You'll get used to it," the girl said as she discarded the match out of the window of the car and into a puddle of water, slapping him on the back. Roxas wasn't sure if he wanted to get used to it. It tasted like shit and felt like fiberglass scratching the delicate pink interior of his esophagus with a million microscopic cuts.

"Hey Roxas!"

A red pickup truck that had seen better days had pulled up next to the SUV he was currently sitting in. His best friend Hayner was practically hanging out the window of said truck, reaching out towards him with his fist in a request for daps, which Roxas accepted with a smile.

"Man what are you doing here at Sonic? This place blows dicks," Hayner taunted playfully. Hayner was a year older than Roxas, and got the beat up truck for his birthday a few months ago.

"Good question..." Roxas responded. Why was he with these seniors again? They were pretentious and boring and couldn't make him laugh the way his best friends could.

"Get in loser, we're going shopping," Hayner laughed, reaching across the seats to push the passenger door open.

Roxas looked back at the group of teens in the car with him. They were looking at him with disdainful sneers, like he'd just played a sick joke on small child. Roxas shrugged and got out of the car, happy to hop into the cab of Hayner's truck and drive away from those assholes.

His second cigarette was way more exciting, in one of the most typical ways you could imagine. Cue nineties alternative band playing a song about much they hate their town...

"Want a cig?"

Roxas always wanted to cringe, scoff, and roll his eyes all at once when he heard that stupid word. He wasn't sure why he hated it so much, but it always felt like a word you wold say when you were trying too hard.

"I guess," Roxas said in a monotone.

He took the cigarette and tucked it between his lips. He looked around to make sure no one was around; they were, after all, behind the cafeteria at Lake City High.

"Dude, don't be so paranoid."

There were two "friends" that were with him, one of them a tall, brown haired guy he didn't know all that well, and the other was the blond girl with the slaphappy eyeliner. She wasn't so bad. Just stupid and painfully uninteresting.

Roxas cut his eyes at the senior boy that had chastised him and slowly turned around to face the expanse of grass behind the building, Zippo in hand.

The flame fluttered in the slight breeze and the tobacco crackled gently as he sucked on the filter, and the moment he raised his eyes to look back across the field, his eyes widened in surprise and pure, unadulterated fear.

"Oh fuck," the blond girl squeaked.

Roxas dropped the lighter to the ground and booked it around the building, cigarette still tucked between his lips, praying to God that he would lose the assistant principle that had just caught them smoking and skipping class all at once. He felt as if he were running incredibly slow, the same sensation you get while trying to run during a really shitty nightmare. Your legs feel like useless Play-Dough appendages and you can't seem to go fast enough to get away from the monster chasing you.

He wasn't sure where his friends were at that point, and he didn't really care. He ran and ran through the commons area, then through the double doors of building C, turned the corner, and careened with squeaking sneakers into the chest of the head principle.

Roxas bounced off of the solid male form and hit the tile floor with a sick sound between a thud and a crack.

"What the hell do you think you are doing, boy?" The man's voice rumbled with anger and authority.

Roxas laid there on the floor, defeated and spread eagle, and responded to the ceiling.

"I was smoking and running at the same time and ran into you. Obviously you know about that last part."

"Smoking? Smoking what?" His dark, beady eyes narrowed.

"A cigarette, Mr. Bullard."

Roxas suddenly realized that said cigarette had disappeared. He eyelids drooped as he imagined himself swallowing the damn thing whole on impact with the brick wall of a human he had just collided with. He imagined the red hot cherry burning a trail down his esophagus, the thing dropping into his stomach acid and festering there until he died of some horrid new form of cancer that riddled his entire body with tumors and pain.

Mr. Bullard took a few steps towards a row of lockers against the wall, bent to the ground, and picked up a miraculously still-lit cigarette. Roxas was surprised. He was genuinely convinced that he had swallowed it.

"Get up, Mr. Wade."

Roxas sighed and pushed himself into a sitting position, shaking his head back and forth in an attempt to reset his equilibrium, and stood to face his undertaker.

"You realize you're getting a serious amount of detention for this." The cigarette, which Roxas glared at accusingly, continued to burn between his fat sausage fingers.

"Yeah I'd pretty much accepted that as soon as I crashed into you."

"You don't seem to care much, son."

"Since we're all being honest here, I really don't. No offense."

Mr. Bullard shook his head solemnly and walked to the double doors. He opened one of them and threw the cigarette into a puddle beside the trashcan.

"You know Mr. Wade, I've been head principle at this school for ten years now," he started as he turned and walked down the hallway, Roxas assuming he was meant to follow, "and I've only known three students who were anything near as hardheaded and smart-mouthed as you."

"That so?"

"Yes, Mr. Wade, that is so." Roxas could tell he was getting frustrated. He smirked in satisfaction. Honestly, he was sixteen at the time and overflowing with the kind of angst that could make anarchists look like preschoolers at snack-time.

"Your mother's gonna be getting a phone call about this later."

"Oh Christ..."

The third cigarette he had inside of Axel's dark car made him feel as if the act could become habitual and embedded in his bones in the form of carelessly developing lung cancer. The way he felt in that moment was something almost fanciful, and it was a feeling he couldn't quite comprehend just yet. He almost smiled again, but thought better of it. He didn't have much reason to be happy. He was a fucking runaway.

"Where ya headed?" Axel asked him after a few moments of driving. Roxas noticed the direction he was going and suddenly thought about the very-not-funny possibility that Axel was headed towards his home town.

"Anywhere but Lake City," Roxas responded quickly.

"Well, I can tell ya that's not where I'm headed."

"How far are you willing to take me?"

Axel pondered the question for a moment, his lips pursing in a way that resembled the freak counterpart of a Maybelline commercial.

"I'm headed to the beach, if you're looking to go that far."

"The beach?" Roxas' chest tightened and he forced his breath to come slow, the same way he might have three years ago, before he had any semblance of social competence and was winked at for the first time by a person approximating something attractive. This enigmatic man, his proverbial golden ticket, was suddenly illuminated with a heavenly light before Roxas' eyes.

"Yeah. I'm looking to move there semi-permanently, if I can find any place with carpet not stained with frat boy spooge."

"So you're not going for the foam parties, fifteen year old slut bags and reggae music?"

"The fifteen year olds may have also been a secondary excuse, yes."

Roxas went silent again, wondering if he was joking about this, too. Multiple jokes about pedophilia weren't exactly standard within the first few minutes of meeting a person.

"I'm kidding again. Do you always take a moment to contemplate taking every joke literally?"

Roxas remained silent just long enough for Axel to drum his fingers once against the steering wheel.

"I don't know you," he settled with mumbling, managing to tear his eyes away from Axel.

"You're right. I guess that is an adequate reason to question me. You are the kid who decided to hitchhike alone, though." Axel chuckled. "How vintage. Pretty risky business, hopping into total strangers cars... You can't be more than fourteen, fifteen tops."

"I'm seventeen", Roxas corrected him with a defensive bite.

"Close enough."

"I'd say you missed the mark."

Axel smirked and cut his eyes towards the blond boy. Something just short of a laugh escaped his throat before he took an obscenely attractive drag off of his cigarette.

"How old are you, anyway?" Roxas asked.

"I turned twenty-two last month, on the nineteenth." Smoke curled and billowed out of his nostrils as if he were a dragon as he spoke. Roxas noticed that no one had bothered to roll any windows down, causing a light haze to be cast over them. "Just graduated early a couple of weeks ago. Feel lucky you ain't headed for the college route, kid."

"So you're a Scorpio," Roxas near-murmured.

"Junior Astrologist?"

"Not really. I just know about signs."

"Then tell me about mine, and I can tell you if you're full of shit." He flashed a grin and waited.

"You're volatile, brash, aggressive and passionate. You say a lot of shit you don't mean, and you may or may not know that your words are your greatest weapon and tool. They can build or destroy whoever you choose to direct them at. You're extremely sexual and have a hard time keeping it in your pants. You rarely think before you act, and that can either spell a good time or a quick trip to the hospital, or jail. The things you believe in, you believe in deeply enough to fight and kill for. The few people you love should feel lucky, because no one will ever love them as deeply as you do. You also have a penchant for hypocrisy."

Axel whistled. "So I'm a violently passionate, hypocritical slut-bag. Impressive. But that barely begins to paint a picture of my inner complexities and machinations."

"Is your indulgent vocabulary supposed to impress me?"

"No, it's supposed to make me feel better about myself."

"Is that a lack of confidence I sense?"

"Potentially, but I don't think a seventeen year old possesses the credentials to formulate such a claim."

"I might have a lot more depth than most seventeen year olds."

"Yeah, and most seventeen year olds would say that."

"You're not even that much older than me." Roxas was beginning to feel incredulous.

"Most seventeen year olds would also say that, for they lack the knowledge of just how much can happen in five years."

"Four years, one month, and twenty days, actually."

"Your birthday is in February?"

"Yep."

"So you're an Aquarius?"

"I thought astrology was bullshit?"

"I never actually said that," Axel said, a wink following close behind. The kind of gut-wrenching wink that could cause puppies to spontaneously combust into ash and blackened organs all the while causing unicorns to achieve orgasm.

Roxas took a final drag from his cigarette and mushed what was left into the overflowing ashtray under the digital clock. He remained silent and decided to give up on the debate, wondering if it was normal or not to have such rapid-fire confabulation with a stranger in the first place all the while pondering if the carpet matched the drapes.

He turned his head and looked out of the window. Dead tobacco shifted to dead cotton, and that was about the greatest extent of stimulation one could get whilst driving down the flat, depressing highway in Bum Fuck Egypt, South Carolina in the dead of winter.

When his mouth wasn't talking, it was usually working a number on his nails, especially when he was nervous. He had received something of a shock when he really noticed how the trees and various crops and livestock were rushing by him from within the dark and overwhelmingly unfamiliar vehicle. Mile after nonrefundable mile flew by from within that stranger's car, and it was only until that moment that he felt something powerful- something that he didn't want to admit felt a lot like fear. He looked down at his hands, fingers tense and un-moving. He only had one nail left to chew, and that was the thumb nail of his left hand.


	2. Lungs

Hi hi hi, don't mind me, casually begging for **reviews**, thank

_Miniature Tigers- Bullfighter Jacket_

"That's a disgusting habit, you know," Axel commented almost casually, making Roxas wonder if his mild concern was obligatory or sincere.

"I know. Can't help it," he responded from between his teeth and thumb nail.

"Why chew your nails? Why not chew gum or smoke cigarettes or crack or something?"

"Smoking crack is probably the worst alternative you could have suggested."

"It's better than chewing your nails. That's fucking gross."

"Your hair looks like it smells gross, but you don't see me complaining."

"We only just met, you know. Save the catty criticism for when we're _really_ close. It'll cut deeper."

Roxas rolled his eyes, but internally started a little at the mentioning of being _really_ close to the guy. How long would he be traveling with this stranger? He knew his palms were sweaty and cold now, and he wondered how long he could keep his impending anxiety attack at bay. Every word from Axel's mouth only perpetuated the reality that he was running away from home, completely alone. The concept, the idea, the sudden _actuality_ gave him the sickening feeling of having something dense and metal crash down on him. The seeds of doubt had full-on sprouted now, and he was beginning to question his decisions.

"You okay, kid?" Axel asked.

"I'm fine," Roxas snapped. "And don't call me 'kid'. 'Sport' is better than 'kid'."

"You're attitude is mildly hostile in the most bizarre way I've ever seen. Getting cold feet?"

Roxas couldn't decide if Axel was the annoyingly perceptive type or if his apprehension was that obvious. Since it had clicked, it had begun to grow fast and with a vengeance. His fingers were trembling in his mouth and his brow had furrowed in a way that felt permanent. He wasn't the most adept at controlling anxiety.

"I'm fine." He repeated. He stared out the window again, watching those trees moving by, taunting him in a way that seemed infuriatingly casual, as if they had hands and faces and were waving at him with dumb, oblivious smiles. He had the awful sensation of being out of control of all of this, like it wasn't _him_ who had decided to run away from home in the first place.

"Listen kid, if you're gonna wig out on me, I'd appreciate it if you did it quietly and can assure me that you're not going to tuck and roll out of my Jeep."

"I'm not gonna tuck and roll, damn, I'm not stupid."

"Well I don't know that, we only just met."

"Trust me. I wouldn't jump out of a moving vehicle."

Axel let out an abbreviated laugh and lit another cigarette.

Roxas, wanting nothing more than a distraction from those fucking trees, turned and looked at Axel.

"Wait... Didn't you just smoke a cigarette?" Roxas' big blue eyes were narrow with puzzlement.

"Yep."

"So... Why are you smoking another one?"

"I'm an incredibly unapologetic chain smoker... Say, would you be interested in picking up such a habit? It gets a little lonely, smoking by myself while people make ugly faces and pretend to cough around me. I don't know about you, but I've always thought that was stunningly _rude_."

Roxas thought about it. Maybe smoking another would calm him down? He didn't see an issue.

"Yeah, I'll have another."

Axel's eyes flashed along with a wicked grin, and he held out the soft pack to Roxas once again. Roxas took one of the cigarettes, cracked the window for ventilation, and this time he did smile, though it was faint and could nearly be described as ambiguous.

"Ah-ha! I saw that," Axel said.

"Saw what?"

"You smiled, sort of. You should do it more often. This ship does run on happy faces, you know."

"Are you being serious?" Roxas' ambiguous smile extended to a noncommittal grin.

"You betcha. I may _look_ like I just snorted a gram line of crystal meth and crawled out of a dumpster that might have contained an aborted fetus, but most parents would describe me as wholesome and delightful as their kid's breakfast cereal."

"I think... Just a shot in the dark, here... that you might be bullshitting me."

"Maybe. I guess you'll figure that out soon enough."

"Do you _try_ to be really perplexing or is it an inherent skill?"

"What do you think, _kid_?"

The smile that Roxas' face was working on had vanished, and he shot Axel the kind of 'are you shitting me' look that would make thirteen year old girls cry with jealousy. He was really good at giving those stereotypical looks-that-kill that pubescent girls shoot their mothers every chance they get. His friends called it _sassy_, embarrassingly enough.

"Would you get butthurt if I said I think you're trying too hard?"

"Not really. As much as I appreciate scathing words from little strangers, I've honestly heard that from so many people that I genuinely don't give a shit anymore."

"I'd take that as a sign if I were you," Roxas said cooly, ashing out of the window. Yeah, he could get used to smoking.

"I don't take it as a sign, because I'm willing to bet like, twenty bucks that I give too few fucks to possess the ability _try_ too hard."

Roxas scowled and took a long drag off of his cigarette. Axel was becoming increasingly obnoxious, and he was beginning to question if he could handle an extended car ride with him. How far away was the beach again? Three hours? Roxas exhaled and he felt himself deflate like a birthday balloon in defeat.

"Did I piss you off?"

Roxas sighed and responded, "Can't we just... ride in silence?"

"Do I annoy you?"

"You're getting there."

"Why?"

"You're just irritating. Like, just be quiet for a few minutes and keep your stick out of the fucking ant pile."

"Aww, I stirred up your ant pile? Tough luck, I never shut up."

"God, just drop me off on the side of the road, I'll hitch another ride."

"No can do. We're in this _together_. I was thinking of making a blood oath, actually. You know, we each cut our thumbs open with a pocket knife and press them together, sealing our fates for eternity and creating an unbreakable pact to be blood brothers until death takes us... Doesn't that sound lovely?"

Roxas cocked and eyebrow and turned to the window again, which was equally unpleasant. If he could have rolled his eyes a million times without hurting himself, he would have.

"All jokes and button pushing aside, haven't you noticed something?"

"What?"

"You're not fidgeting or mutilating your fingers anymore."

Roxas' face softened when he realized that, yes, he was no longer trembling, no longer anxious, and no longer biting his nails. He was fairly at ease, if not a little ruffled.

He shook his head and scoffed, and yet he couldn't hold back a smile. The kind with teeth showing that his mother always nagged him to execute in family photos.

"What... Axel, what the hell _are_ you?" Axel had unexpectedly cheered him up, and by unexpectedly Roxas meant that this was something that had literally never happened. _Ever_. His tone, which was quiet and somewhat muted before, had become a little more bold and unconstrained now, something close to the way he would speak with Hayner or Olette. This was quite the feat for Roxas, because he _never_ opened up and resembled anything comfortable so soon after meeting a person. He wasn't shy by any means, just socially dysfunctional and unable to really find anyone to be interesting or stimulating in any way. He's never felt an initial bond, or even a long term bond, with anyone that was exactly awe inspiring or profound enough for him to blabber with ease and without suspicion. Actually, he's never felt much of a connection with anyone _ever_. Axel, so far, had shown himself to be the exception to the rule. He made conversation easier than most people. It must have been a Scorpio thing.

"What _am_ I? I'm your bright and shining moment, baby."

"Are you fucking serious right now?"

"You'll get used to it."

Roxas wanted to ask him if, by saying 'you'll get used to it', he really thought that they were going to be sticking together through this little escapade of his, but it was one of those things that you'd rather keep to yourself for fear of either a) making yourself out to be a clingy little nancy boy or b) hearing an answer that may be a little creepy coming from a stranger so early on in the venture.

"Say, looks like we're getting close to Lake City. We'll get on Myrtle Beach Highway in about ten minutes. Or at least that's what my GPS seems to think. You know, I could have taken I-20 to I-95, but I've always liked the back roads."

Roxas grimaced and slouched low in his seat. If they were going through town, god forbid he would be visible. You know, that whole small town rule: everybody knows fucking _everybody_. If someone caught even a glimpse of him in that jeep, someone with his mother on speed-dial would have it covered in about a nanosecond, and then he would be _royally_ screwed.

Axel looked over at him and grinned knowingly. He had the sense not to comment, but to distract.

"Twenty Questions?"

"Takes too long. And someone always ends up asking about a bra size, even if no one has tits."

"True... Never Have I Ever?"

"That'll work, as long as you don't ask about my sexual encounters."

"Done some fucked up shit, have you?"

"No. My sex life is just non-existent and pointless to ask about."

"Wait," Axel said taking his eyes off the road fully to face Roxas dead on. "Don't fucking tell me." He shook his head in exaggerated disbelief.

"Don't tell you _what_?" Roxas saw the tops of some _very_ familiar antiquated brick buildings against a cold, cloudy sky and swallowed hard. He turned his entire face to look back at Axel.

"Don't tell me you're a virgin. For the love of our lord and master Satan himself..."

"Watch the road! Jesus!"

"Don't you dare avoid my inquiries!"

"I'll never get to answer if you crash and kill us!"

Axel laughed and looked back to the road. They were doing about twenty-five through the pint-sized town and were in no danger of crashing or killing anyone.

Axel sneered at the old, crusty place. He was happy he was merely passing through.

"To answer your question," Roxas started, sliding lower in his seat and crossing his arms, "yeah, I'm a virgin."

"_How_?"

"It's not really that crazy. Some people don't lose it until college."

"Really? Shit, I lost mine when I was fourteen."

"Please don't tell me it was to a babysitter, because then I _will_ tuck and roll."

"Unfortunately, it wasn't. It was my best friend. Well, my best friend at the time. We don't really talk anymore. College and all... it separates people."

"Oh," Roxas said simply. He almost asked about the girl and the event, but the conversation had bled into an area that had the potential to be touchy. No need to dig further.

"By the way, if your backpack is obstructing your leg room, you can chunk it in the backseat."

"I will in a bit. Are we almost through town?" He just _really_ needed to get through town.

"Just about. I'll tell you when we're on the main stretch."

"Okay." Roxas reinserted his thumb nail and chewed.

"Hey," Axel started, looking honestly sympathetic. "You need to chill, kid. Come on. I know leaving the nest is a big, scary deal and all, but... You know, hakuna matata, or whatever."

Roxas' brow furrowed and he wanted to respond with his famous sass, because honestly, what kind of seventeen year old boy could possibly even _attempt_ to chill in his current situation? But something stopped him from mouthing off. He actually wanted to hear Axel's opinion on why and how he should stop repeatedly shifting into panic mode.

"Let me have another cigarette and then tell me about the secrets of _chill_."

"Before I do that, I'm gonna have to know a bit more about you. Hell, all I know is your name and sign. This isn't a booty call at a gay bar. I at _least_ have to know your mom's maiden name and how your first pet died before I stick it in."

"Is this shit constant, or do you have an 'off' button?"

"It's pretty fucking constant. I worked hard on it," he said with a sly smile, handing Roxas another Newport. "I'm about to turn onto the highway. You can sit like a normal human being now."

"Thanks," Roxas said, sitting up and lighting his cigarette with a quickness. He cracked the window again and took a few moments of silence to toss his backpack into the back seat and take a few drags.

"Shall we begin the game?"

"Five or ten fingers?"

"Ten, of course."

"Any rules?"

Axel waggled his eyebrows and said, "_No_ rules. Anything goes, short stuff."

"Well... Never have I ever had sex."

"Oh come on! That's cheap as fuck!"

"You said no rules," Roxas responded musically.

"Okay, okay, let's start over. There's only one rule, and it's 'don't be an asshole or a cheap little shit'. Got it memorized?"

"Please don't tell me you came up with that little catch phrase all by yourself, because it's a little embarrassing."

"You're just jealous because you don't even _have_ a catch phrase."

"Never have I ever..." Roxas cut in and trailed off. "I have... never smoked weed."

"You're shitting me."

"No really, I never have. Not that I wouldn't, I just... I don't know, I guess I've never really had the chance while I was in the mood."

"Ahh, the stars weren't aligned properly?"

"I guess not."

"We're pulling over at that gas station up ahead. Then gimme five minutes."

"Oh... kay?"

They put the game on hold so Axel could take long, lanky strides into the gas station and emerge a few moments later bearing a brown paper bag and a thin plastic package.

"What did you get?" Roxas asked when the Jeep door slammed shut.

"Two Colt 45's and a pack of Zig-Zags. I'm about to get you high as a mother fucker."

Roxas went silent. As much as he wanted to ask 'what's it _feel_ like', he clammed up like a bivalve. If there was anything about himself that _really_ annoyed him, it was his insufferable habit of saying nothing when he feared he would accidentally say something stupid. He always wondered, during all of his little turtle shell moments, what he could have learned, what he could have contributed to, the friends he might have made, the drugs he could have done, the girls he might have fucked, the experiences he could have had, the stories he could have told, if only he had pried his stiff, rusted lips apart and defibrillated his cold, limp tongue long enough to speak and be _heard_.

Roxas mentally kicked the shit out of himself for letting it happen again, yet remained silent.

Axel looked to and fro to make sure no one seemed interested in his Jeep, and reached down into his boot to remove a small, twisted up plastic bag holding something lumpy and green.

"Oh," Roxas managed to squeak out.

"What?"

"Nothing. It just doesn't really... look..."

"It's doesn't look like the scary, monstrous life ruiner your parents told you it was? Trust me kid, this is the most casual thing you will ever do in your life, and it'll make you feel good, laugh a lot, hungry, horny, maybe a little sleepy, and it'll cure whatever cancer you may or may not have."

"_Horny_? That's not awkward at all..."

"Not like crazy, raging, uncontainable hard on you could smash buildings with, or anything. Just... if you're around the right people you'll probably be a little more down to fuck than you usually are."

"Oh. Okay."

"Now, if I was handing you some pure MDMA, on the other hand... That's that shit that wreaks havoc." Axel looked as if he were looking back on a moment that he was both overly fond of and slightly disturbed by.

"Um... What is that?"

"Oh _boy_..." Axel rolled his eyes and shook his head, a gesture that Roxas found uncomfortable to look at, for some reason. Maybe it was the sudden awareness that he actually didn't know much about drugs. It almost produced that hot flush in his ears he gets when he says something dopey and gets laughed at. His reaction embarrassed him, like Axel was on a panel of judges behind a wide table and loose leaf papers solely there to review and critique his existence, only to shatter Roxas' hopes, dismiss him with a wave of his hand, and move on to the next candidate. It was a silly thought, he told himself, but Roxas felt the cold sting of humiliation deep and subtle in his solar plexus all the same. It was that horrid gut feeling that he tried to avoid with his signature bivalve behavior. Roxas could have knocked his own teeth down his throat.

Axel started breaking weed on a cd case and rolling a joint then. All of the manner of smells that were in the Jeep before were replaced with the exotic aroma of grape flavoring and dank bud. Roxas thought that the smell was almost earthy, like a mixture of pine, citrus, and soil. It was a very nice smell.

"I'll tell ya one thing, sport," Axel said from between the teeth that the joint stuck out from, "if you don't gain anything from adventuring with me, you'll at least gain knowledge and potentially first hand experience about the finer, less healthy, but immensely enjoyable things in life."

With a flick of his lighter and a little twitch at the corner of his mouth, he lit up, puffed, and inhaled deep.

As he exhaled, the action was broken up by repressed coughs, the solid cloud of smoke whooshing out of his lips in a stop-and-go fashion. His body gently lurched with each of the forced halts, his eyes watering lightly, eyebrows raised, a good natured expression on his face.

"Wow," _cough_, "that's a kick," _cough_, "in the fucking throat!" _Cough_.

Roxas eyed the scene in front of him. He wasn't _entirely_ sure how he felt about getting kicked in the throat, but Axel seemed to be happy with the effect, and he involuntarily curled his toes in excitement. He was ready to try something new. This was what this whole quest was for to begin with, wasn't it?

"I stopped by a friend's house in Camden on the way," _cough_, "and bought an eighth from him," _cough_. "It's really good medical grade stuff."

He extended the joint to Roxas then, which he took with a little nervous twinge of his stomach.

"Here goes nothin'," he said with a vague smile and a shrug.

"Pull with your lungs, don't suck on it like a cigarette."

It was easier than expected. The heavy, earthy smoke had a bitter, spicy, yet pleasant taste. He licked his lips and tasted the sweetness of the paper. As he exhaled his own thick cloud of smoke, his throat and lungs began to burn like fucking hellfire, and he broke into a fit of coughs resembling a tuberculosis patient in 1912.

His eyes watered with the exertion of his coughing attack. He tried to repress them like Axel did, but with no such luck. I guess it was a skill that came with practice.

"No, don't hold back the coughs," Axel said, a very self satisfied expression smeared across his face. "Coughing makes you like, fifty times higher."

"Then why," _wheeze_, "don't you cough?"

"Because it's annoying."

"You're being a hypocrite."

"Does being a Scorpio count as an excuse?"

Their voices were strained with smoke, and the cab of the Jeep was hazier than ever. Axel put the Jeep into reverse and pulled out of the gas station and began to drive away, taking the joint back from Roxas.

Axel took another two tokes, Roxas took one more, Axel took another, and then a slow sensation crept up on him. His eyelids felt puffy, and he was having a hard time keeping them open. A smile spread across his face, the corners of his mouth practically touching his earlobes, and he had the strangest, most distinct feeling that his head had turned into a balloon. He thought about the old AirHead candy commercials from the 90's and started _giggling_.

"Fuck, don't tell me you're a giggler," Axel said as he cracked open the window to throw the roach out and ventilate the car a bit.

Axel's voice sounded very far away. Roxas turned his head to look at him, _very_ slowly, not able to move at a normal speed, and continued to laugh.

"Am I high? Like, this is what this is?"

"Yeah, this is what this is."

"This isn't even that crazy. I just feel..."

"Chill?" Axel suggested. His eyes were puffy, too.

"Yeah!" Roxas' facial muscles were beginning to cramp from smiling so hard.

"See? And that, my friend, is the secret of _chill_."

"Wow. That came full circle in an unexpected way. It's like a movie." He felt like he could have babbled endlessly. He didn't even care how unlike him that feeling was.

"Or just me answering your questions."

"Or that."

"You know what's exponentially better when you're high?"

"What's that?"

"Pink Floyd."

With that, Axel tethered his iPod to his car's sound system and shared with Roxas glories of The Wall. It was loud and nearly overwhelming, to the point that Roxas could feel a tightness in his throat, a side effect of a wave of emotion that might have had potential to cause tears. He was able to insert himself fully into the sound, and there was something very profound and big about the feeling; he had never experienced any substance that actually enhanced his senses, after all.

"This is fucking beautiful!" He proclaimed this at the top of his lungs, tilting a scrunched up face to the ceiling of the Jeep.

"I told you!"

"Hayner really loved this album," Roxas said with a small, quiet smile.

* * *

><p>"If you don't like Pink Floyd, I don't like you."<p>

That was one of the first things the two blond boys ever argued about since they had broken the casual-friend-at-school boundary and ventured into the-asshole-that-raids-your-fridge area. Roxas was fourteen, Hayner had just turned fifteen. It was summer, the first summer they ever hung out together. They were bored, and Hayner was confused about Roxas' taste in music.

"I didn't say I don't like them, they're just not my cup of tea, I guess."

"Oh what, not _grunge_ enough for you? You're the only person I know who still actually listens to Nirvana. What the fuck is this, 1992?" Neither of them noticed the hypocrisy in that retort.

"I have an old soul, I guess," Roxas said, picking at a broken button on his green flannel shirt. In all actuality, it wasn't even flannel. It was a cotton shirt with a plaid print. Roxas didn't know any better yet.

"Oh fuck you, you don't have an old soul, you're just an angsty fourteen year old."

"Shut up dude, I'm no less angsty than you are!"

"I'm chill as fuck, don't get it twisted."

"I'm not 'getting it twisted'. Who even says that?"

"Me, faggot."

Roxas rolled his eyes and rolled over onto his stomach. He was currently lying in his bed while Hayner sat in the computer chair, spinning in lazy circles.

"I'm just saying," Hayner continued, "You can't top The Wall. Hands down, best album ever written."

"You're full of shit. Have you even _listened_ to The White Album?"

"The Beatles? Seriously? You're the biggest closet hipster I've ever met."

"I'm not a hipster!"

"That's what they _all_ say."

Neither of them knew how immature and unrefined their music taste actually was. If you had told them, at the tender ages of fourteen and fifteen, that Pink Floyd, Nirvana, and The Beatles were all _technically_ considered pop music, they would have gone up in arms and argued all day that they were absolutely _not_ pop. They were _so_ not mainstream. They were original and edgy and _no one_ listened to them. Like, _ever_.

"I'm so bored!" Roxas moaned into his pillow after a long pause.

"Wanna walk and get some ice cream and hang out at the spot? Meet Pence and Olette?"

"I guess so."

It was all they had to do, really, but Roxas probably couldn't think of anything more fun at the time. It was all he really knew. This was the first group of friends he ever had that he habitually hung out with, after all. He was social enough, but only marginally. He wouldn't call himself a butterfly.

They left Roxas' typical suburban southern house and got their ice cream, Hayner pushing Roxas into a trash can on the way, causing him to flail dramatically in his descent to the pavement, and dump all of the trash into the street. Hayner howled and ran away, leaving Roxas with skinned palms and red ears.

"Hey, I got a winner!" Olette said an hour later after finishing her own sea salt ice cream bar. She was lounging on her favorite couch in their little secret hang out spot, which they were _very_ proud of. She waved her popsicle stick in the air triumphantly, the faint letters on the stick vaguely visible to the other three friends.

"Man, I've never gotten one of those," Pence said, sitting in the floor with his back against the couch.

"Like you need one, Tubby," Hayner cracked. There was a ring of 'ohhhhs' around the small circle of friends. Pence could even admit that he kind of walked into it.

"Apply cold water to burned area," Olette giggled.

They talked and laughed and joked and listened to music and play fought and pulled pranks and did all the normal shit that kids their age did, and Roxas loved it at first, he really did. It was unfortunate that he got so tired and bored as fast as he did. It probably took about a year for him to slip into a state of boredom that felt a lot like he would imagine cryostasis to feel like.

"We should hit the beach this summer," Hayner suggested as the sun was setting, and they all began to gather their things to head back home. It would be dinner time for all of them soon.

"Yeah, we should," Pence responded, checking his phone for calls from mom. "I'm sure my brother can take us before school starts back."

"_Lame_. Your brother is a buzz kill from hell." Hayner accentuated his statement with a well-placed toss of a popsicle stick at Pence's head.

"Then what's your bright idea?"

"I dunno. Steal a car. Rob a bank. Get older friends."

Roxas considered that option for a moment. It was an idea that he felt had endless opportunities attached to it, and since he had gotten some real friends, he figured it was a very _doable_ option.

He would look into it.

* * *

><p>"So about that game..." Axel trailed off and lit another cigarette. They had decided to turn the music down for background noise after several songs.<p>

"What game?" Roxas asked. He was feeling a little sleepy now. Not to mention forgetful. They were playing a game...?

"That game of Never Have I Ever that we started? Your brain didn't turn into a fried egg that fast, did it?"

"Oh..." Roxas remembered, though he didn't think he had the kind of attention span at the moment to keep focused on the number of fingers they had up or down. "Wanna play truth or dare, instead?"

"I like the way you think, sport," Axel's eyes sparkled at the idea.

"I refuse to do anything fucked up, so don't even think about asking."

"I can be very persuasive."

"I'm sure you can, but not with this guy."

"We'll see... And on that note, truth or dare?"

"Truth," Roxas said almost in a knee-jerk fashion. He rarely ever said 'dare' first.

"Alright... Tell me the truth. Is your life really _that_ boring?"

The air in the Jeep became suddenly very heavy and thick as they both held in bated breaths. Roxas swallowed a lump in his throat.

He looked out of the window and saw a vaguely familiar corner store with an old Coca-Cola sign and a highlighter green poster board advertising "country cooking" inside.

Axel made a noise in his throat as if to say, "I'm waiting". Roxas looked back to the man and immediately had the thought that there was no purpose in telling him at all; those eyes that Roxas tentatively searched now made it seem as if he already knew, as if he had _been_ Roxas in a past life and was coming back to tell him that he was a fucking idiot who didn't know anything about anything.

"Why do you think?" Roxas offered. He sneered in annoyance; he didn't feel quite as high anymore after that question.

"Listen, it had to either be obscenely boring or abusive, and I don't see any signs of mental trauma hidden in those baby blues. You ran because you couldn't take one more day in that stagnant shit hole."

Roxas pressed his lips together tightly and looked down at his lap.

"You don't have to tell me everything. Chances are, it's a long fucking story." His voice softened and his words were full of empathy that Roxas didn't trust. He didn't like the fact that Axel was asking oddly specific questions and basically answering them correctly on his own. It didn't sit well on his gut at all.

"Yeah, it is." Roxas looked up from his lap to stare straight ahead. He heard Axel take another drag off of his cigarette.

Surprisingly, Axel had no response. Roxas could almost feel him thinking about what he could say that wouldn't sound patronizing or shallow, and to be honest, Roxas couldn't think of a response himself that he wouldn't be offended by.

"Truth or dare?" Roxas asked, taking the responsibility off of Axel's shoulders.

"Truth," he responded.

"Is that your natural hair color?"

Axel barked a laugh.

"Is that seriously your question?"

"Yeah."

He sighed and said, "Well, to answer your oh so deep and prying question... sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Yeah, it's naturally red, but not exactly this shade, per se. I color it a little."

"How _metro_," Roxas laughed.

"Hey, I highly doubt your hair is all _swooshy_ and cute like that because of a few cowlicks."

"It's not _cute_."

"It is."

"It is _not_."

"I bet girls ask to touch it all the time because it's so _cute_."

Roxas let out a slightly mortified and anguished groan.

"Truth or dare?" Axel asked, throwing yet another cigarette out of the window.

Roxas stared him down with a dark look before answering, "Truth."

"Gay, straight, bi, trans, asexual, pansexual, none of the above...?"

"Well..." There was a long pause. A long pause that was interrupted by Axel whistling the Jeopardy theme song.

"Don't fucking start."

"Then answer my question."

"I don't... really know...?"

"Hmm." Axel's eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"I... now don't take this the wrong way, but I kind of already got a not-so-sure vibe from you."

"Yeah? And what about you?"

"You know... I'm not really sure yet either."

"That surprises me, a _lot_."

"Why's that?"

"Because you seem extremely sure of everything."

"That's because you don't know me, sport."

Roxas inserted two fingers into his mouth, completely subconsciously, wondering if this car ride was going to get any more or less melodramatic and invasive. He just wasn't sure whether he liked Axel or not, whether he could trust him as far as he could throw him or farther. What was he trying to pull, anyway? Was he trying to act as if he truly was some kind of savior for Roxas, illuminating some metaphorical path before him, the end of the road being some sort of paradise revolving around everything his parents ever told him not to do?

Was that really something to worry about, or embrace?

His mind was in turmoil; gut feeling and inherent desire were currently battling learned behaviors and his parents concept of morality. On one hand, he was extremely tempted to throw all caution to the wind and dive head-first into an entirely different world, to throw himself to the wolves, to see what would happen. After all, hadn't he already started that chain of events by hitchhiking down the highway to begin with? On the other hand... morality wasn't a concept that he could so easily rip apart, and at this point, he still wasn't sure whether he wanted to rip it apart at all.

"Truth or dare?" Roxas asked quietly.

"Dare. And stop fucking chewing your goddamn fingers."

"I dare you to pull over and moon the next car that drives by. And they're my fingers, I can do whatever the hell I want with them."

"Ugh, it makes me nervous," Axel said with a scowl, slowing down and pulling off into the dirt and dead grass.

Axel's face alone as he dropped trou' and pressed his pale ass against his window as a wholesome and horrified family of four drove by was enough to send Roxas into another fit of giggles; after all, he was still under the influence of weed. No amount of mental unrest would change that just yet.

"You look like you do this every fucking day. Like, oh no biggie, I'm just gonna expose myself to non-consenting public. I do it all the time."

"Maybe I do, you don't know me," Axel said with an eyebrow waggle, re-zipping and buttoning his pants.

"I should get out now before I have to tuck and roll."

"Before you do that, truth or dare?"

"Dare." He could say dare now that Axel had said it. He never said it first. He always felt too _eager_ somehow when he said it first.

"I want you to dodge the next train that comes by."

A silent huff of nervous laughter ghosted past Roxas' lips, barely heard over the idling of Axel's unmoving Jeep, and the corner of his mouth twitched, wanting to smile in the hopes that this asshole was fucking joking.

"No way man, why would you ask that?"

"The railroad tracks run parallel to this road, right past those trees on our right. I'm gonna roll down the windows, we're gonna drink these Colt 45's before they get too warm, we're gonna listen for the next train, and you're gonna dodge it when it rolls by." Something in Axel's eyes was dark in the way that set off every alarm, red flag, warning bell, and siren that existed in Roxas' head. "Or, you know, you could get to hitching a different ride... your choice."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Roxas asked, jolted and panicked. None of his friends back home would have ever dared him to do something that stupid.

"Deal?"

Roxas shook his head and flung open the car door, slinging one leg out as if he were going to leave, and stalled. He ran his tongue across the backs of his slick front teeth and debated. He didn't know how many more drivers would be willing to pick him up and take him as far as Axel was willing to take him, and it was still awfully cold...

He situated himself back into the passenger seat, but left the door open. A giant glass bottle was suddenly dropped into is lap, narrowly missing his valuables, and he flinched and snapped his gaze back to that stupid, crazy redhead that he was beginning to dislike.

"You really have no off button, do you?" Roxas asked.

"If I can honestly say one thing about myself, it's that I believe deeply in the concept of going hard or going the fuck home. You can do with that what you will."

Axel pried the cap off his beer and drank deeply, the smell of it greeting Roxas' nose nearly instantly. Roxas had always liked beer when he had it. He slowly, timidly, took the bottle opener from Axel's outstretched hand and opened his own beer, licking the cool glass with just the tip of his pink tongue and tasting a hint of yeast and hops. The beverage was crisp on it's way down his throat, and he was able to focus on the repetitive act of tipping the glass bottle back, feeling the carbonated liquid run down his esophagus and bubble in the depths of his stomach where it would wait to be filtered and then expelled. He waited for Axel to say something else completely outrageous, because what _else_ was this psycho going to say, but no words came. He simply looked down at the bottle on his knee, the sand that had filled the cracks and crevices of the floorboard, the pale, dead grass on the ground beneath him.

Axel lit another cigarette.

"Want one?" He asked.

Roxas nodded his head and gave the soft pack a sideways glance.

"There's only one left," he stated.

"I know. I bought another pack at the gas station. I won't hold you to it."

A train horn sounded in the distance. Axel sat up straight, eyes wild and wide, and reached for the handle of his door.

Roxas' eyelids drooped before he responded, "Honestly... I'm banking on that."

"Consider this train dodge payment for everything I ever do for you. You'll thank me later."

There was something significant about that statement that caused the strangest sensation to creep up Roxas' spine.

He said nothing as he finally planted his feet on the ground. He gripped his beer tightly, not willing to have his hands empty, to not have anything to clutch desperately to. Each step felt stupid, like a deliberate attempt at purposeless suicide, and Roxas berated himself for every plodding step that carried him closer to those train tracks.

"Hurry up, you'll miss it, the next train won't come through for hours, probably!" Axel ran up beside him with those distinctive lanky strides, and threw an arm over his shoulders. "I'll do it with you if it'll make you feel better."

Well, at least he wouldn't die alone. He nodded his head in affirmation, staring blankly ahead through the trees at the dark, rusted iron rails that were beginning to look more and more like some medieval death machine the closer he got to them.

They were both standing on the tracks sooner than Roxas wanted them to be, and he could feel the rails rumble beneath his feet much more violently than he would have liked.

"Here it comes," Axel mumbled. Roxas risked a glance at the seemingly deranged man to his left and swallowed thick. "Jump when it's about six feet away."

Dry air left his throat as he nodded once again. His eyes were forced open so wide, he felt like he would never blink again.

Massive amounts of metal and power and machinery rounded the bend in the tracks, and Roxas barely had time to think before it seemed to be nearly on top of him. The sound was louder than anything that had graced his ears, and the sheer mass of the object rumbling towards him made his knees weak and his mouth dry.

He could admit that he screamed like a girl as Axel shoved him off of the tracks before jumping off himself on the opposite side.

Roxas laid there, spread eagle in the itchy brown grass, chest heaving and eyes still peeled, watching each train car as it passed him by, each wheel, each warning label, each piece of graffiti. When the last car rolled by and the wall of metal was replaced with pine trees, Roxas saw a bright head of hair pop up from the other side of the tracks.

Axel whooped and howled and jumped with more energy than Roxas could fathom. The next thing he knew, the man had leaped over the tracks and jerked him up from his safe place on the ground, ruffling his blond hair and shouting meaningless curses at the sky. The look on his face was wildly happy; his teeth were flashing in a bright grin, his eyes were wide and feral, his laughter was simply _manic_, and everything combined made Roxas' heart beat that much faster. If he hadn't known any better, he could have sworn that he was on the brink of cardiac arrest.

"You're... you're fucking crazy," Roxas croaked. He was sure he hadn't blinked yet, and if it weren't for his arm around Axel, he probably would have fallen to his knees.

"Are you kidding me? That was exhilarating!"

"I need to sit down."

"Oh brother," Axel said, prying Roxas hand from his shirt and letting him nearly crumple to the ground. Axel dropped to the ground and found himself on his back next to the traumatized boy.

The sun was beginning to set beyond the tree line, and the cloudy, grey day was giving way to one of the only moments of color during this season. The sky turned purple and orange and pink and red and the two newly made friends looked up at the sky, their breath visible on each exhale.

"Aren't you cold?" Roxas asked, looking down at Axel's tank top.

"Nah. I don't mind it."

"I meant what I said. You're fucking crazy."

"What does that make you?"

Roxas paused. "Stupid," he settled with saying.

Axel laughed softly and looked from the boy to the sky and back again. Green eyes closed and he inhaled deep through his nostrils. He was ready to smell ocean instead of pine.


	3. Teeth

Chapter Three: Teeth

_Nirvana- Very Ape_

Roxas found himself becoming more overtly curious about Axel, probably at around the same time he realized that they were both in this for the long haul. It could have been the moment when Axel sprung up from the ground, grabbed the boy's arm, and yanked him off to the Jeep, fresh vigor and bright determination in his gait.

"That was exactly what I needed," Axel said as he hopped into the driver's seat and started the car.

"I'm pretty sure that was the exact opposite of what I needed," Roxas grumbled, even though he couldn't help but to simmer in the rush of adrenaline and dopamine flooding from his endocrine system and into his blood stream, making him feel like he could single-handedly power the entire city of Las Vegas. "I'm never playing Truth or Dare with you again."

"You don't really mean that. Look at those eyes. You needed it just as much as I did."

Roxas huffed a laugh and looked down at his lap, fighting the smile that threatened to overtake his face.

"See! I told you, you're _gonna_ thank me later."

"Where the fuck did my beer go?"

"Did you have it on the tracks?"

"I... think so...? Maybe I dropped it."

"You dork, I paid good money for that thing."

"It was almost empty, anyway. It was getting to the gross, flat part."

"I'll buy you another," Axel said with a wave of his hand.

There was a new meaning to the sound of the engine and the pavement under the Jeep's wheels, to the trees, churches, and cornerstores rushing by, to the inescapable passing of time as they continued on to their destination. The sky steadily darkened, and Roxas found himself voicing his unwavering curiosity.

"You're not from around here, are you?"

"Originally, no. I grew up in California until I was about eighteen and then moved to Columbia to live with my dad, right after high school."

"Did you go to USC?"

"Yep. Go Cocks," Axel lowered his voice and winked for emphasis.

Roxas rolled his eyes and ignored the bad joke. "What was your major?"

"Art history, with a minor in philosophy."

"Yikes. I've always heard that was a tough major."

"It kind of was, but I was already obsessed with the subject before I even knew it was going to be my major, so that helped. My mom is a curator for the MOCA in Los Angeles."

"Are you an artist?"

"I dabble a little. I paint with oils, mostly. It's nothing too inspiring."

"I'm sure you're good."

"Hey, we're all our own worst critics, I guess."

Roxas hummed in agreement. He beat the shit out of himself on a regular basis for things that probably only he really cared about or noticed.

Axel lit another cigarette.

"Doesn't that get expensive? You know, smoking so many?"

"Kind of. I sort out my money into piles of priority, so I don't fuck myself. Sometimes I only have enough for a pack every two days, and _that's_ when I get big and scary and unapproachable."

"I can imagine."

"Want one?"

"Sure," Roxas said, after brief hesitation. He didn't want to come off as a bum.

"Hey, if you really want to make it up to me, you can buy the next pack. I insist that you don't, though."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Well," Roxas said, "if you say so."

He took another and lit up, the ember glowing brightly in the dark space.

"So, what do you like?"

"I mean... I guess I like a lot of things. You mean like, hobbies?"

"Sure, we'll go with that."

Roxas looked down and thought. He didn't really have that many, to be honest. "I just kind of hung out with my friends. There isn't really much to do in Lake City."

"Ahh, but there's something to do everywhere you go, you just have to know where to look."

"Yeah, you say that because you've never lived anywhere like Lake _Shitty_."

"No sports? Singing? Dancing? Acting, drawing, reading, black magic, watching hardcore porn, whoring yourself out, doing coke, solo exhibitionism in grocery stores, anything?"

"Yeah, I totally sold my body for money and jacked off in the meat department, you absolutely nailed it."

"You literally didn't do anything but hang out with your friends? And you never even got _high_?"

"I drank a little," Roxas shrugged.

"No wonder you ran away," Axel sighed.

"I think it's pretty understandable."

"I kind of feel like offering you a stripper with a line of coke on her tits while singing _A Whole New World _and twirling around."

"Disney songs seem _completely_ appropriate in that situation."

"Disney songs are appropriate for any situation."

Roxas chuckled and took another drag. He was beginning to understand why people smoked. The action gave him something to do other than gnaw on his nails and fidget awkwardly. The behavior made him feel as if he looked much less like a socially inept zombie and much more like a cool, collected social virtuoso. It was something to hide his fear behind, and a prospect of that nature was something he would grip and dig his nails into desperately.

He looked out through the tinted window, and it seemed much darker and later than it really was. There was something about a night sky and twinkling stars and black, glittering pavement that could have Roxas scrunching his toes and drumming his fingers with anticipation and pent up energy that didn't exist during the somber daylight hours. He wasn't sure what it was, but there was some kind of promise in darkness, some kind of assurance of infinite possibility and the guarantee that you can go out and stumble upon the best kinds of trouble.

Only Roxas had never really known where to look for it until he hopped into a stranger's car.

It had begun to rain around the same time they started seeing billboards for gift shops, swimsuit stores, welcome centers, and Ripley's Aquarium. It crashed down hard and noisily against the windshield, each droplet momentarily illuminated by the yellowed headlights of the Jeep before exploding on the glass like bodies off a cliff. Roxas contentedly watched water collect and migrate from the windshield to the side window and travel down the body of the vehicle out of his sight. The sound was soothing.

"Have you ever watched the sun rise over the ocean?"

"Hmm?" Roxas' daze was interrupted by Axel's quiet question, and he looked to his left to see a bright red ember illuminate his faintly olive complexion as he took a hit off a freshly procured Newport.

"Have you ever sat on the beach and watched the sun rise over the ocean?"

"No," Roxas answered faintly.

"Hm, you will soon. Xion always insists on watching the sun rise when we see actually manage to see each other. It's actually really fucking nice."

"Who's Xion?"

"A good friend," Axel said, with the softest look on his face that Roxas had witnessed yet. "A damn good girl, trustworthy as hell, can do just about anything better than anyone. One of my favorite humans. You'll like her a lot." He paused and seemed to realized something puzzling. "Actually, now that I think of it, you two are really similar, in a lot of ways. She's got the same shitty attitude."

"My attitude isn't even that shitty."

"Agree to disagree."

Roxas rolled his eyes, a habit he knew he should probably work on.

"Are we meeting her there tonight?"

"Not sure. She didn't really know if her car could make it all the way here in one trip, coming from Asheville, so she could be here tonight, tomorrow, or next week. She'll find a way, though. I've got faith in her."

Roxas wanted to ask where they would be staying tonight, but abruptly changed his mind.

"Can we stop by a fast food place or something soon? I haven't eaten since breakfast."

"You read my fucking mind. I've been waiting for a McDonald's or a Wendy's to pop up for half an hour."

They didn't run into any fast food joints, not even a Waffle House, for another hour.

"Jesus fucking Christ, we may as well wait it out for something on The Strip, we're almost to Kings Highway," Axel groaned.

"Hey wait, I think I see a gas station up ahead," Roxas leaned forward and squinted his eyes.

"Eureka!" Axel cried, a victory fist in the air. It was a combination gas station and Burger King.

Roxas smiled and reached behind him to grab his backpack. He saw Axel cut eyes at him, attempting inconspicuous glances at the contents. Roxas paused and shifted a look back at him, which he responded to by looking back to the road. Roxas squinted.

He grabbed his wallet and rifled through a neatly folded wad of green. He probably should have been nervous, carrying this amount of money around by himself, but teenagers didn't think like that. He pinched a ten dollar bill and pulled it out, zipping it shut and placing it back into a little makeshift 'secret compartment' he had in the bottom of his backpack.

Axel pulled into the gas station and swung around the building, coming to an abrupt halt at the drive-thru box.

"What do you want?" Axel asked, turning to look at Roxas while he rolled the window down.

"Double cheeseburger meal with a Coke," he responded as he heard the garbled, nearly inaudible employee mumble a request for their order. Roxas always imagined that if he were someone going to a drive-thru for the first time, and didn't already know what questions would be asked, sincere confusion from him would be met with angry bewilderment from a disgruntled employee. Drive-thrus were one of those things; if you didn't already speak the code, there was no point in even trying.

"Yeah, lemme get an Angry Whopper meal with a Coke, and make that king size, and a double cheeseburger meal with a Coke."

"Will that complete your order?"

Roxas chewed on his inner cheek as he gave Axel a look over, something he was able to do discretely since he was turned towards the box, one arm slung out of the window. A guy that skinny could not _possibly_ eat that much food.

Roxas was proven wrong when Axel was patting his stomach contentedly in the parking lot about eight minutes later. Roxas was nibbling on a fry, staring at the redhead in slight awe.

"I did not think you would eat all of that, at least not that fucking fast. I would have needed at least one break."

"I'm kind of like a camel. I don't really consume much other than coffee and cigarettes, and then about once every few days or so I'll pull some shit like this and eat an amount of food that probably weighs as much as my head."

"That doesn't sound like a very healthy practice."

"College. I blame college. I blame it for a lot of things, actually."

Roxas nodded and sucked down a small amount of Coke, letting it sit on his tongue and bubble before swallowing slowly. He ate very slowly, and in small amounts in comparison to other boys his age. Pence in particular.

They got back on the road, and Roxas leaned his head against the cold glass of the passenger side window. The rain hadn't let up yet, and he was turning thoughts over in his mind about bad omens and somber foreshadowing. He was beginning to recognize buildings, though, and that was a good sign. They must have been pretty close. He shifted his eyes to look at the GPS which said that they were about six miles from Kings Highway, the road that would take them right to The Strip, the heart of the beach.

He hadn't been in years. The trip that Hayner always talked about on lazy days at the usual spot never happened, even though he made unceasing promises about it every year.

It just... never happened.

* * *

><p>A good walk often helped when Roxas was feeling particularly melodramatic and contemptuous. School had just started back after all, summer vacation was officially over, and his malcontent had grown at least ten sizes larger than it was when he was a junior. At least it was a nice evening after school; twilight was beginning to set in and the town didn't look half shitty, even with all of the run down buildings, yellowed awnings covering the doorways of cafes and gift shops he could only sneer at, overgrown foliage taking over spaces and the unacknowledged cracks in the road.<p>

The town reeked of neglect and he liked to think of it as akin to an open, half-eaten, three year old bag of potato chips forgotten under his bed, but Roxas wasn't so bitter that he couldn't see the beauty in it on days like today. Southern charm did exist, and occasionally it appealed to him.

He nearly smiled and took a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, drinking in warm air thick with humidity and the sweet scent of honeysuckle and magnolia.

He was on his way to the usual spot to meet up with the gang.

He picked up a few ice cream bars, one for everyone, from the little shop on the corner before walking the short fifty yards or so to the spot.

It was really only a one room extension of Olette's dad's garage he primarily used to fix up old cars. The sky was starting to darken only slightly when he arrived, both hands full of ice cream and a small smile on his face, when he heard Hayner speak.

"Fuck him, I'm about ten seconds from being completely fucking done with him."

"Aww Hayner, don't talk like that. He's just been really distracted, that's all."

"I don't fucking care, there's no excuse for ditching us the way he has been for the past, what, year? Year and a half? He has no right."

"He has _every_ right to make new friends, Hayner! I'm sure there's something going on, something he's not telling us-"

"We're his real friends, he should tell us everything."

"You know it's not that simple!"

Olette was the one defending him. He felt his cheeks and ears fill with chagrin and his stomach did heavy backflips with an emotion close to anger. Maybe it was something closer to shock.

"Like I give a fuck. I tell him everything. He's a selfish, ungrateful prick, and after tonight, I don't think I ever want to talk to him again."

"Hayner!" Olette exclaimed.

Roxas dropped all of the ice cream on the ground, spun around wildly, and ran.

He ran home. He ran and he didn't stop, not even when his lungs started burning and his legs started aching. He burst through the door and didn't even stop when his mother gasped and immediately panicked at his abrupt and violent entrance into the quiet home. He ran to his room slammed the door, locked it tight, and stood in the middle of his room, chest heaving, body shaking. He started to feel dizzy and disoriented, either from the running or the way his head swam with treacherous amounts of emotion, he didn't know.

He took three steps forward and collapsed face-first onto his bed. He felt completely out of control of everything in his life, and it was the most infuriating and terrifying thing he'd ever felt. The combination of everything was getting to him. Time was flying by, and he wanted nothing more than to hold out his hands and push it back with all of his might, to try to keep it from passing him by before he had a chance to do anything. His friends were on the verge of hating him, and if he was being honest, he would hate him if he were them, too. And _god_, he just couldn't take the questions anymore. He couldn't handle all of the inquiry about his impending future from his parents and his teachers when he wasn't even sure what his favorite color was yet. He wanted desperately to click his heels together and be transported to a much simpler place that didn't require him to be so perfect and unshakable when he knew he wasn't. He knew he was about as stable as a poorly constructed blanket fort.

He didn't know what to do. He had saved up almost every cent of his money for a year now, and there were endless amounts of things he could do with it; specifically the reason he began to save in the first place.

He just didn't know if he had the courage or conviction to actually go through with it.

He thought of Hayner's words again and he stuffed a mouthful of comforter between his teeth and screamed. He screamed and punched the wall beside his bed over and over again until he saw blood smeared on the off-white paint.

A gentle knocking followed by a soft voice calling his name from behind his door interrupted his turmoil.

* * *

><p>They were taking a right onto Kings Highway before Roxas really knew it. His memories had kind of killed the the soothing vibe he'd gotten from the steady falling of rain. He furrowed his brow and smashed his cigarette butt into the ashtray, which was now definitely overflowing. He couldn't manage to cram it in without one or two butts falling into the dark abyss below.<p>

"Almost there," Axel mumbled. He turned and looked at Roxas with a grin. "Now we just have to get through an hour of hellish traffic."

"Will it still be so busy at night?"

"It's arguably worse. But I may be wrong. It is the dead of winter, after all."

Roxas hummed and paused. After a moment, he bit his lip and took a plunge.

"Where are we staying?"

"Well..." Axel scrunched up his face in an almost this-is-a-little-uncomfortable-but-you-can-take-it kind of way. "I hadn't planned on picking up any lost little children on the way-"

"Hey!"

"-so with that in mind, I was going to sleep in my car until Xion got here. We had a few places picked out to look at together as soon as she got here, and we'd saved enough money to take care of deposits and first month's rent. I mean, I wasn't really worried about it. I'm fine sleeping in my car, I've done it about a million times."

It was kind of amusing for Roxas, hearing Axel speak in a way that sounded a lot like backpedaling. It was as if he were discussing an uncomfortable arrangement that neither party was particularly enthused about. Roxas chuckled.

"What?" Axel asked, cutting his eyes and fighting a grin.

"Dude, I really don't give a fuck."

Axel pressed his lips together and looked back to the windshield.

He responded after a moment, his voice low,"You're okay with sleeping in my car."

"Umm, yeah."

"You're not bothered?"

"Nope."

"Not sketched out?"

"Not at all."

"Not feeling... Oh, what is it you kids call it these days... awkward?"

"Nope."

"I wasn't expecting that. So far, you've kind of shown yourself to be an uncomfortable kind of guy."

"It's just a car. I can handle that, at least. Jesus, who do you think I am, some kind of thirteen year old girl?"

"Something like that, yeah."

Roxas wanted to punch him in the thigh, give him a nice frog that would bruise later, but changed his mind. That was something only close friends did.

They drove down the long stretch of highway, four lanes on each side, lined thickly with illuminated storefronts, strip malls, restaurants, gas stations, bars, night clubs, hookah lounges, strip clubs, coffee shops, sex shops, opulent gated neighborhoods and tourist attractions. Roxas' eyes glittered in the light of what he considered _life_, and felt his heart leap into his throat. There was just so much to _do_ and he wondered how he could possibly do it all in a lifetime.

"GOODWILL," Axel exclaimed suddenly and whipped his Jeep into a left turn lane, turning suddenly and cutting off traffic, causing general vehicular ruckus.

He pulled into a space and hopped out of the Jeep, Roxas feeling rushed to keep up.

"Time for some new threads. I guess I kind of need a jacket, anyway."

Roxas wanted to ask what had happened to his last one, or if he'd ever owned one at all.

They stepped through the automatic doors and scanned the signs hanging from the ceiling for the Men's section.

"Wow. This is the swankiest fucking Goodwill I've ever been in."

"I've never been inside of one, period."

"Where the hell do you get clothes?"

"I dunno, really. My mom buys most of my clothes. I guess I like Hollister pretty well, but I don't have much from there."

"Oh fuck, you've got a rude awakening coming your way."

"What?"

"Never you mind. Come. Let us explore."

Roxas was fascinated by Axel in what he would consider a natural habitat. He looked quite at home in the thrift store setting, and Roxas had a hard time focusing on the clothes and shoes and books and random stuff while Axel perused and scoured animatedly through absolutely _everything_.

"Does this dress make me look fat?"

Axel had draped a poofy, emerald green prom dress that looked like it was from the early nineties over his gangly frame and posed.

"No, it's really flattering. It brings out your eyes."

Axel gasped and clapped his hands before exclaiming, "That was just what I was looking for!"

Roxas picked up a flamboyant purple hat covered in flowers, beads, and ribbons and placed it on Axel's head.

"There. Now it's _perfect_," Roxas beamed.

"We should be stylists."

"We could dress Jennifer Lawrence for the fucking Grammy's."

"I would rather _un_dress her."

"Agreed."

They made it to the Men's section where Roxas' eyes landed on a worn leather jacket covered in spikes.

"Cool," Roxas muttered, taking it off the rack. There was a giant Slayer patch on the back of it.

"You need that," Axel said, very seriously. "You fucking need it."

"I don't know if it's my size..."

"That does not matter, oversized shit is trendy right now anyway, you _need_ it."

"How do you know about fashion trends?"

"Because I'm not so uncomfortable with my masculinity that I need to pretend that fashion is only for _girls_." That last word was drawn out in a whiny fashion, his face twisted like he'd tasted something sour.

"Well, let me try it on at least."

He pulled on the jacket, and it wasn't quite as oversized as he thought it would be. It fit well enough, just a little baggy in the shoulders and the sleeves stopped right around his thumb nails.

"It's fucking _beautiful_," Axel said, clasping his hands together and batting his eyes like an overemotional mother at a graduation ceremony.

"You like it?" Roxas asked with a smile. He had to say, he liked the way it felt on him.

"It suits you, it really does. I think we've found a new look for you."

"Cool," Roxas said with a smile that felt kind of dopey, but he didn't care.

"Here, lemme pop the tag for you."

"Hey, no!" Roxas said, backing away.

"Hey, don't make a big deal out of it," Axel hissed, his eyes flashing with something like anger, but closer to annoyance. "If you start acting all feisty and boisterous, Hawk-eye over there will come over here and interrogate us, and I'd rather that not happen because I'd like to walk out of this store with my _own_ jacket."

Roxas just then noticed that Axel was wearing a jacket himself, one that looked a bit more biker-ish than Roxas' thrash-metal jacket. He was willing to bet that the tags had been popped on it already.

"Who's Hawk-eye?"Roxas whispered.

"There's always one. The little old lady over there, scanning the place like she's private security. She's the type that sees and hears _all_, and one little fuck up will have the cops here asap."

Roxas looked beyond Axel's shoulder and saw here; she had close cut brown hair that would have obviously been grey if it weren't for hair dye, brown sagging skin that was probably aged more than it should have been from years of tanning, and narrow, beady eyes that looked as if they could see right through walls.

"Show me what to do," Roxas muttered, looking Axel dead in the eyes. He was ready for a little rebellion.

"Okay, here's whatcha do..."

Axel took Roxas on a little crash course about stealing in Goodwill. Not every store was the same, but after you popped tags, you had to be careful about hidden sensors and those pesky ink capsules that would sling ink everywhere if you didn't remove them correctly.

Roxas roamed the store with Axel, looking as inconspicuous as he could, and waited until Hawk-eye's back was turned.

"She's not looking," Axel muttered. "Do it now."

Roxas hooked his finger under the plastic tag, tugged hard, and popped it, letting the tag fall to the floor.

"Any sensors?" Axel asked.

"No."

"Good. Put it on and let's blow this popsicle stand."

Roxas chuckled and began to walk towards the entrance, pulling the jacket on as he went.

Unfortunately, he wasn't looking as carefully at the floor as he should have been. He stepped on a wooden duck with _wheels_ on the bottom of it and went sailing into a display of other used toys.

Hawk-eye's gaze snapped up and she stared directly at the two delinquents before her little eyes squinted and she made her slow way towards them.

"Goddamn it. Fuck. Get the fuck up," Axel said, pulling him up by the arm.

"A fucking duck..."

"Let's go."

"A fucking _duck_ tripped me..."

They made their way hastily towards the entrance, and Roxas knew they were doomed before they'd even made it past the cash registers. He knew their eyes were too wide and their posture too stiff.

"Hey!" Hawk-exclaimed. "You get back here!"

Axel gripped his arm tighter and pulled him along.

"I mean it now! Hey!"

Roxas grit his teeth hard.

"_I know you didn't walk in with those jackets_," Hawk-eye hollered at the top of her lungs. "I'm calling the police!"

"_Run_," Axel growled, letting go of Roxas' arm, and the two booked it, angry yells following them through the automatic doors.

Roxas didn't think he'd ever run so fast, not even when the principle caught him smoking that one time. They made it back to the Jeep and got inside, moving at light-speed, their breath coming fast inside the cab of the car. Roxas felt like he was a vibrating mass of nerves and fear.

"Will the police chase us?" he asked, still trying to catch his breath.

"No, not unless one was nearby and saw us leave." Axel was breathing heavy, too.

"And the chance of that happening...?"

"Slim to none. Though it would seem that you don't exactly have the best luck, sport."

Roxas rolled his eyes and his head flopped back onto the headrest. It's not like he needed anyone to tell him. He knew.

Axel looked at him and smirked.

"A fucking duck tripped you?"

"Yeah... A little wooden duck... with wheels."

Axel snorted and began to chuckle, which morphed into full on belly laughs, the kind with ab cramps and tears. Roxas shook his head and face-palmed breaking into his own fit of laughter. The two howled with the kind of laughing fit you have when you just barely pull something completely stupid off by the skin of your teeth, and you're laughing more to fend off the fear and anxiety of being almost caught than out of actual humor.

Roxas felt absolutely electrified, and he had the sense that this was exactly why he was here.

The two made their way to the mecca: The Strip. That was where all matter of life collected at Myrtle Beach. That's where all the ocean-front hotels were, and all activity seemed to revolve around said establishments. It was brightly lit with neon colors and flashing lights, though it wasn't quite as lively as it was during the summer, it was still a sight to see. There were still shows playing at the venues and people drinking in the bars, but the spirit wasn't quite there the way it was when it was inhabited by rowdy high school and college students desperately searching for their identities at the bottoms of beer cans and coke straws.

Axel pulled into a parking space somewhat out of the way, about two blocks inland from one of the big hotels, the Yachtsman. The car was effectively tucked away on a side-street, and Axel assured the boy that police wouldn't fuck with them here.

"I don't know about you, but if I don't sleep soon, I'm gonna collapse. I haven't slept since the night before last. I'm beat."Axel said, stretching.

Roxas snuggled into his newly procured jacket and thought a moment; he was pretty exhausted himself. It had been a long day, and that was an understatement.

"Yeah, I've kind of had a crazy day. I'm exhausted." He closed his eyes for a moment and it felt so good, he almost didn't open them again.

"I'll clear out the back and fold the seats down really quick."

He got out of the car and did just that, Roxas fighting the sudden sleepiness that had threatened to take over. He would have loved to get out of the Jeep and take a walk down The Strip, maybe dig his toes in the cold, damp beach sand and listen to the sweet sound of the ocean, but the idea of moving from his spot in the passenger seat and upsetting his coming sleep seemed absolutely abhorrent. He was jolted awake by the sound of a small motor. He turned and saw a partially inflated air mattress.

Roxas gave Axel a disbelieving look.

"Hey, I told you, I've done this a million times. What did you think, that I just sleep on the scratchy, carpet covered plastic? Weak."

Roxas watched the mattress inflate fully and quietly smiled.

"This is brilliant," he said, looking up at Axel.

"I know, I'm a genius. It might deflate while we sleep on it though, I don't know."

_While we sleep on it_.

Roxas felt nerves creep and wriggle into his guts, the confidence he'd felt earlier waning fast, a mantra of _don't make it awkward_ ringing in his mind. It wasn't like he'd never shared a bed with Hayner before.

* * *

><p>A foot found it's way into Roxas' back.<p>

"Ow, you little shit!" Roxas hissed.

"Fuck off," Hayner groaned.

"There is no reason to sleep so violently," Roxas whispered in the dark of Hayner's bedroom. He should be used to it by now, though. After all the sleepovers they'd had at this point, he should be able to sleep through the kicks and slaps of Hayner's flailing arms and legs.

"I said fuck off, or I'm not gonna be able to go back to sleep," Hayner groaned again, but as he rolled onto his back and sighed up at the ceiling, Roxas knew the damage had been done.

Hayner had a full sized bed, a luxury that Roxas knew nothing about since his parents never let him graduate from a twin bed. It had a down mattress pad too, and Roxas didn't care how it might look, he slept in that bed with his best friend every time he stayed over. The comfort was worth it.

"I would say sorry, but..." Roxas mumbled.

"I know, you're not," Hayner near whispered.

It was a quiet night that summer, and it was an important summer, too. It was the one just before Roxas said goodbye to everyone, and this night was the only one he had spent at Hayner's the whole two and a half months they had off from school.

Roxas had the sneaky suspicion that Hayner was mad at him. He'd acted cross the whole night.

"Are you mad at me?" Roxas asked.

"No," Hayner pouted.

"Yes you are, I can tell. Is this about me stomping your ass in Super Smash Bros tonight?"

"No, asshole."

"Then what's wrong?"

"I'm not gonna tell you, because I'll sound like a fucking bitch."

"Just tell me, Christ, I'll never know what to do if you don't tell me."

Hayner was quiet for a moment before answering. The window was open to let warm, wet air in from the outside, the sound of frogs, crickets, and cicadas flooding in like a sweet summer song.

"You do realize that this is the first time you've even stepped into my house this summer, right?"

Roxas chewed his lip as guilt washed over him. "Really?" he asked quietly, wincing at the ceiling. He felt like such a douche.

"Yeah, dick. You hardly even come to the spot anymore. Where the hell have you been? Pence and Olette have been trippin' on your ass."

"Umm..." Roxas hummed nervously, thinking of the older kids he'd been spending more and more time with. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that there was no real reason for him to hang out with those uppity cock bags the amount he had been lately. He could only guess that he did because he was hanging on to some shred of hope that something _exciting_ would happen for once, but week after week it was always Sonic Drive-Ins, Wal-Mart parking lots, and do-it-yourself car washes, cigarettes, and coffee. He never even smoked.

"Does it take you that long to come up with an excuse?" Hayner asked bitterly.

The very small space between them became very suddenly tense.

"No, I just... I don't really have an excuse. I feel like such a douchebag..."

"Well, you've gotta have a reason. That's all we're really asking for, you know. We just wanna know why you don't like us anymore."

"No, that's not it," Roxas said, rolling onto his side to face his best friend, desperate to make him understand. "I'm just... Well, do you remember how we've talked about going to the beach for so long, to go out and party and do shit we've never done before?"

"Well... yeah," Hayner mumbled, still staring at the ceiling.

"Remember how you said that a solution would be to get older friends?"

"Yeah, but I didn't mean just _you_ getting older friends and abandoning us like this."

"No, I never wanted to _abandon_ you guys, I always tried to get them to come to the spot or something like that, but they never wanted to, they always..."

"They always thought we were too lame, huh?"

"Well... I mean, I wouldn't put it _that_ way..."

"God, just shut up Roxas, you're only digging yourself a deeper hole," Hayner said before turning on his side and turning his back to Roxas.

"Hayner, come on..." Roxas' face was scrunched up in concern and guilt.

"Roxas, shut _up_."

Pangs of remorse coursed through his limbs and throbbed in his chest, and he felt his traitorous ears flush with blood and something like shame. His fingers migrated reflexively to his mouth and he chewed for a moment, wondering if Hayner would fall back asleep soon and they could wake up in the morning like nothing happened. He sighed and looked at Hayner's back, which was still tense.

"Hey," Roxas mumbled, poking his friend in the back.

"Oh, what was that, the knife that you're getting ready to stick in?"

"No dumb-ass, that was my finger, I was trying to see if you were still awake, which you are."

Hayner grumbled something inaudible and curled up, trying to pull the blankets away from Roxas.

"Hey, blanket thief, don't be such a dick!"

Roxas tried tugging the blanket back from Hayner, but his grip was strong.

"Cut it out!" Roxas nearly yelled.

They fought with the blankets for a moment, which turned into something between a tickle fight and wrestling, which quickly became laughter and a well placed noogie from Hayner who had put Roxas in a successful hold with both legs wrapped around his torso, ankles locked, and an arm around his neck.

"Stop it you little shit!" Roxas squeaked, the arm around his neck making it difficult to talk.

"Only if you say 'I, Roxas, am one hundred percent gay for Seifer Bradley and want his balls in my mouth'."

"Fuck no I will not say that! He is such a doucher!"

"I won't let go until you do!"

Roxas put his finger in his mouth, got it slick with spit, and stuck it in Hayner's ear.

"Gahh!" Hayner yelled, arms unwrapping from around Roxas' neck and hands grasping to find the blanket and relieve his assaulted ear canal.

Roxas laughed triumphantly and twisted around in Hayner's legs, pining him on his back, holding his arms over his head.

Hayner's legs were still wrapped around him, and Roxas had the unexpected thought that the warmth from his body was nice, and that he looked good pinned down like that, and that was the first time Roxas ever questioned exactly which gender he would rather stick his dick in.

* * *

><p>Roxas sat stiff in his seat, hands gripping the upholstery on either side of the chair. He'd been thinking a lot about Hayner today, and at this point, it had done nothing but make him edgy and anxious.<p>

"Crawl on back, sport,"Axel said cheerily. "I've got a blanket around here somewhere, but no pillows. You'll have to make do with a balled up jacket."

Roxas gulped. If he was sleepy a few minutes ago, he wasn't now. He rolled his eyes and fought the urge to groan, knowing he'd be tossing and turning.

He took a deep breath and peeled off his jacket, twisted around, and climbed into the back which had been completely taken over by the mattress. He gently flopped onto his back on a respective side and stared up at the ceiling. There was a mysterious dark stain on the fabric there.

Roxas idly wondered what debaucherous activity had gone on in this Jeep before.

"Here it is," Axel said with a victorious smile and started unfolding a dingy old comforter that had seen better days. Roxas pulled it towards him as Axel threw it over the mattress, and he couldn't help but notice all the holes, tears, and burns that peppered it's surface. He didn't wanna think about the kinds of stains on this thing.

Axel settled in beneath the blanket next to him and started kicking off his shoes. Roxas began to do the same, realizing that through his building inner frustration, he'd forgotten to take them off before. He wanted to sink his teeth clear through the lip that he was chewing on.

"What's with all of your oral fixating?" Axel asked.

"What?" Roxas croaked, looking to Axel in shock.

"Oral fixating. I've watched you chew your nails, cheek, and lip incessantly since you hopped into my car."

"Oh," Roxas muttered.

"God, your brain went straight to sucking dick, didn't it?"

"No!" Roxas protested, looking back at Axel.

"There is no need to be so tense. I thought we were over this stranger danger tension."

"We are!"

Axel's eyes narrowed knowingly.

"What happened to 'who do you think I am, some kind of thirteen year old girl'?"

He laughed as Roxas' face reddened.

"Don't laugh at me, dick-head, it's not even like that," Roxas muttered and crossed his arms.

"You're adorable."

"I am _not_," Roxas whined, turning his back to Axel.

He heard a light rustling and a gentle shift in weight, and felt a long finger poke him in the back.

Nostalgia crept up on him slowly. This was heartbreakingly familiar.

He turned around, and was greeted with intense green.

"If it's not like that, then what's got you all... uneasy?" Axel asked quietly.

Roxas whispered, afraid that his voice would quiver if he used it, "I guess... maybe I'm starting to get homesick. I just... I was just thinking a lot about my friend. I was really shitty to him."

"Sleeping somewhere else makes it feel too real too soon, huh?"  
>"Yeah..." Roxas said, trying to relax and divert his thoughts to things less depressing.<p>

"Hey, I know it sounds easier than it is, but try to get to sleep soon. You'll feel a lot better in the morning, trust me.

_Trust me._

Roxas sighed and closed his eyes, trying to find the comforting sleepiness he'd felt before he started thinking too hard. Alas, it was to no avail. His mind continued to race, even after Axel rolled onto his back and quickly began to breath slowly and evenly, his face smoothing out into a peaceful expression created from sleep and dreams. Roxas bit his lip and wanted to reach out and poke Axel, to wake him up, just to have someone to talk to, but the action felt out of bounds.

He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face with his hands. He felt tears prick at his eyes, but fought them off with a ferocity that seemed out of place in the calm, quiet moment. He grit his teeth in frustration, wishing he could grind them hard enough to break them into pieces sharp enough to cut as he swallowed them.

He forced himself to lie on his stomach, burying his face into the mattress, and tried with all of his might to fight off all thoughts of friendship, love, sex, guilt, doubt, and insecurity.


	4. Ligaments

Chapter Four: Ligaments

_Lorde- Buzzcut Season_

The amount of energy that Axel had when he demanded that Roxas get the fuck up and smell the ocean was enough to startle the boy to the point of nearly ruining his day. Axel was far too exuberant for this hour, whatever time it might be. There wasn't a point in time that Roxas hated more than the few blurry moments you experience after you wake up when you're trying to force yourself to do the unspeakable: join the living. It felt much like twisting your own arm to a breaking point.

Roxas groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.

"Don't give me that shit you little ankle biter," Axel said, attempting to tear the blanket away from the boy. He had the back of the Jeep wide open, sunlight streaming brightly into the usually dark car. Roxas could tell, even from underneath the ratty blanket, that the clouds and rain had dissipated in lieu of a cold, cloudless sky, pale with the colors of the sunrise.

"Don't call me an ankle biter, you fucking fuck hole," Roxas mumbled from his nest of blanket.

"Come on! Awaken, Sleeping Beauty! This is no time for acts of folly! Pancakes doth call our names!"

"What time is it?" Roxas groaned, daring to peep a squinting eye from behind his soft shield.

"Seven oh four."

"It's _seven in the morning_?" Roxas asked, burying himself back into the haven of bed, however trashy it was.

"Yes, sunshine, normal people wake up at seven and eat breakfast and brush their teeth and style their hair and all that shit. Now let's go, wee one!"

Axel talked with his hands, Roxas noticed.

"But we don't even have to go to _school_," he whined.

"I _know_, and that's more reason to get up early and enjoy the day when it's lacking the oppression of public education. Now let's go!"

With a final tug, Axel effectively ripped the blanket away and left Roxas curling into a ball, feeling naked and at the mercy of the elements.

"You're pathetic," Axel said with a hand on his hip.

"You're a dick."

Axel rolled his eyes and grabbed the despairing teenager by his ankles, pulling him towards the edge of the bumper and effectively giving him no choice but to put his feet on the ground and stand.

"Holy shit your _hair_," Axel said, pointing and laughing.

"Shut up. God, I fucking _hate_ you," Roxas said, frowning deeply and running his fingers through his feathery blond hair, trying to make it somewhat presentable.

"Is it like that every morning?" Axel asked.

"Yes, asshole, that's what happens when you sleep on your hair. Then again, you wouldn't know, since yours is so disgusting it just _stays_ in that shape."

"Hey, it's not disgusting, it's _au naturale_," Axel said with flourish of one hand.

"It probably smells like week old dirty dishes."

"It smells phenomenal, come 'ere, give it a wiff."

"Ew, no!"

"It smells like lavender! I shit you not!"

Axel chased Roxas around in the street for a moment, head down, trying to rub his hair on the boy's face or neck or whatever other exposed skin there was.

"Now that you're awake and refreshed on this brisk morning," Axel said after they'd gone back to the Jeep to get their things, "throw on your jacket, put on this beanie to hide that dead cockatiel on your head," a black knit hat was thrown into Roxas' face, seemingly from nowhere, "and let's get some breakfast!"

The duo walked away from the SUV and towards The Strip. Axel slung his arm over Roxas' shoulders and began singing some Eagles song, or something else old white people listen to, leaving Roxas walking with his arms stiff by his side, feeling awkward and disbelieving that a human could _possibly_ be this cheerful this early in the morning.

They walked two blocks back to The Strip, made a left, and walked another short block to a little breakfast joint that Axel swore had the best food that'd ever graced his mouth. The t-shirt shops and henna tattoo parlors and snack shops were all closed, but the color was still enough to leave Roxas breathless with bright eyes. The scores of palm trees blew in the slight yet ever-present breeze that numbed his cheeks, and if Roxas looked behind them he could see the Sky Wheel, an impressively large ferris wheel that could have his stomach churning with acrophobia just looking at it. Apart from feeling a little self-conscious and unsure of what to do with his arms with Axel being so _close_, he felt uncharacteristically lively, and most importantly, he felt _inspired_. He felt like the two of them were a sight to see in their leather jackets and studs and torn denim and messy hair. His eyes were bright, his smile was small but undeniably there, and his nose was full of the unmistakeable smell of ocean.

"Olympic Flame Pancake House," Roxas read the green and white sign in front of the fairly dated, but not ancient, building.

"Wait 'til you have their coffee, oh sweet _Lord_," Axel gushed.

Axel's arm dropped from Roxas' shoulders as he pushed open the door, holding it for Roxas and bowing.

"Asshole," Roxas sneered, pushing Axel away from the door and opening it himself. There was something like a little jolt in his guts at the action, at the awareness that Roxas had just made deliberate playful human contact with the redhead for the first time. It felt like another stitch in the tapestry of their companionship, or some other metaphor that belonged in a bad Lifetime movie.

The diner was surprisingly quiet, considering the amount of people there, and only a gentle murmur of conversation and lightly clinking silverware could be heard. It was seven in the morning, after all, Roxas thought. There may have been three tables open from what he could see, and inhaling deeply, he could feel a light pang in his stomach as the smell of pancakes, syrup, and bacon wafted up his nostrils. He didn't finish his burger last night, and he hadn't eaten at all the day before. He often had a hard time shoving sustenance down his throat when he was anxious, no matter how hungry he thought he was.

"Cid!" Axel proclaimed as he entered the restaurant, interrupting any amount of peace and quiet that may have existed before.

"Hoo doggy," the man named Cid said as he looked up from the host booth, "I haven't seen that ugly face in over a year. Where the hell ya been, boy?"

"Finishing college as fast as I could. I had summer courses up to my eyeballs last summer and couldn't make it out here to see my favorite backwoods piece of shit."

"No shit," Cid replied, the two coming together for a stereotypical man-hug with heavy slaps on the back and everything. "Who's the little tyke?"

Cid looked around Axel to eye Roxas with a grimace that seemed perpetual. Roxas felt his upper lip curl gently, but hopefully not enough to offend. He was trying to work on the chronic bitch face.

"This is Roxas. I picked him up on the side of the road."

Cid chuckled, waiting for the real introduction.

"No, really, he was hitchhiking and I was the unlucky bastard that decided to pick him up."

"_Hey_," Roxas said, shooting the redhead a look.

"God_ damn_ it kid, I ain't even gonna ask," Cid grumbled as he turned and walked to a booth, pulling a chair from a table and sitting down, waiting for the pair to join him. Axel did so quickly while Roxas hesitated behind him. Watching Axel walk to that booth frustrated him on an unreasonable level, and he wondered how long it took the average person to hone in the ability to look so _cool_ and controlled every second of every day. Maybe he was born with it.

Axel saved Roxas from potential social catastrophe by offering him a cigarette as soon as they were seated in the booth, facing each other. He felt that he understood on a deep level, now, the whole appeal around cigarettes.

"So, Roxas," Cid said, turning his entire body towards him, which seemed suspiciously weighted to the boy, "how're you likin' America's Favorite Beach?"

"I dunno yet. We just got here last night," Roxas answered quietly.

"And you didn't drag him into any trouble?" He asked, looking to Axel.

"Ehh, we may or may not have been chased out of Goodwill by an old lady. Nothing crazy."

Cid shook his head and grumbled.

"Don't get the kid arrested and sent home, now."

"I _won't_, Daddy."

"Now kid," Cid said, ignoring Axel and looking back to Roxas, "I know this is some kind of big ol' adventure for ya an' all, but I'm gonna give ya three pieces of advice. One, don't go to the foam parties. Just... trust me on that one."

"No, I want to hear about your harrowing experiences at the foam parties Cid, please," Axel said, leaning in with his fists pressed against his cheeks.

"Two," Cid continued, ignoring Axel's existence entirely, "Don't get tattooed at some fuckin' tourist trap that sends a tacky ass _limousine_ to come get yer drunk ass from a bar so you can make life-long mistakes involving a dragon on yer ass cheek. What's that fuckin' place called? Dr. Ink?"

"Dr. Ink and Piercings, yeah," Axel said with a nod.

"Three... Never, and I mean _never_ go to Medieval Times... Actually, on that note, just don't go anywhere that smells too much like tourists."

"Get bent, I went there three years ago and I had the fucking time of my _life_!" Axel interrupted.

"Don't listen to that jackass, listen to _me_," Cid interrupted, taking a drag from his Marlboro Red.

"I still have my fucking crown! And my purple goblet!" Axel said, practically clambering on top of the table with excitement.

"What is it?" Roxas asked curiously. A waitress came by and placed mugs on the table then, Axel still struggling not to explode as she poured the coffee.

"Okay, here's the jist; you go in, you sit in this _arena_, they bring you shitty food, an' a bunch of fuckin' fairy boys ride around on their horses and _joust_ each other fer the fair maiden's hand in marriage, an' _sword fight_ with fake ass swords that _spark_ when they clash, an' it turns into some dumb ass story about betrayal an' shit, I can't really remember, I jus' remember it being queer as fuck. Shera fuckin' dragged me to it years ago."

"It's not even _like_ that," Axel exclaimed, looking horribly saddened and offended.

"Oh Christ," Roxas said, looking skeptical. He couldn't imagine such a cheesy dinner-and-a-show type of deal to be quality in any way. He wrapped his hands around his coffee mug and took a small sip. "Oh _Christ_," he repeated, looking down in awe at the best coffee that had ever graced his tongue.

"Are y'all ready to order?" The waitress came back and asked, placing silverware on the table.

"Yeah, he'll have the french toast with bacon, eggs over easy, and hash-browns, and I'll have more coffee," Axel answered immediately before Roxas could even think.

"You sure you don't want anything to eat, sweetie?" The waitress asked, looking at Axel with concern, probably eyeing his seemingly gangling appearance.

"I'll be fine," Axel said with a nod.

Roxas stared at Axel.

"Who said you could order for me?" Roxas asked.

"Trust me on this."

"What if I don't like french toast?"

"I don't care what you like or don't like, you are going to like this, I _promise_."

Roxas rolled his eyes. Cid ashed his cigarette in the cheap aluminum ash tray in the center of the table.

As they waited for their food, Cid introduced himself a bit more fully to Roxas, explaining that he was the proprietor of the pancake house, and that it had been in his family for going on forty years now. Before he took over, he was a combat pilot in the U.S. Airforce. He was discharged from his military career four years ago, but didn't explain why. Roxas noticed that his hands shook lightly and unceasingly.

"Well, I'll let you kids eat yer breakfast in peace," Cid said as he stood and replaced the chair he'd been sitting in. "Nice meetin' ya, Roxas."

"Nice meeting you, too," Roxas said, eyeing the massive amount of food that was suddenly placed in front of him.

Axel snorted and pressed his lips together.

"Please tell me you can finish what I don't eat, because I can't fucking eat this much."

"Oh no. You're eating every bite and you're gonna _like_ it."

"I can't do this."

"Do you need instructions?"

"No."

"Do you need me to feed you?"

"Ugh, _no_."

"Then eat! I'm telling you, you're gonna love it."

Roxas rolled his eyes and looked back down at his plate. There was an oval platter with four giant slices of french toast, a plate on his left with three eggs and four slices of bacon, a plate on his right harboring the biggest pile of hash browns he's ever seen, and a small bowl filled with butter.

He _was_ hungry...

Roxas picked up his fork, took the first bite, and it was _over_.

"Wow. You weren't fucking around, were you?" Axel asked, resting his head against one fist, looking at Roxas with hooded eyes, lifted eyebrows, and a smirk that Roxas knew meant 'I told you so'.

Every plate was cleaned, including the bowl of butter, and Roxas regretted nothing, though he felt that his blood _must_ be running thicker.

"I think I've found my favorite new restaurant."

Roxas smiled and leaned back in the booth, putting his hands behind his head. Axel had been right about a lot of things thus far, and this was definitely one of them. Another thing, Roxas realized, was that he _did_ feel better about all of this since waking up. Time heals all wounds, or whatever the fuck the saying is.

"Hey we're gonna use your bathroom to brush our teeth and do our hair, okay Cid?" Axel yelled from across the restaurant.

"Fine, whatever, just don't scare away my customers, okay?" Cid hollered back.

* * *

><p>Roxas found himself with his back against the cold sand, the pier to his left and the Sky Wheel to his right. He looked up to the redhead sitting next to him, the impressive casual-thrill ride framing Axel's form like a halo. He was staring off into the cold grey ocean with a smooth, calculating expression.<p>

"What're you thinking?" Roxas asked quietly. The waves crashed against the shore, and the sound was somehow both overpowering and soothing. The smell of salt was stronger than ever.

"I was thinking about light. You know, how it refracts, how it creates color."

"Yeah?"

"It's just weird, you know? Light makes the sky blue. It makes the sun set red... Bet you don't know why." Axel smiled.

"Do tell."

"Out of all the colors, red travels the farthest."

"Are you high?"

"For some reason, no."

Roxas huffed a silent laugh and shook his head, looking back to the ocean. He was more at peace in this moment than he had been since... well, he couldn't remember how long it'd been since he'd felt at peace. There had always been a sense of _freedom_ in this place for him, in the infinitive stretch of sand and never-ending expanse of ocean. He was sure that there was a part of him that will always regret never being able to do this with Hayner, Pence, and Olette, but being here with Axel was just as perfect, if not more so. After all, there was no sense of deadline, no thought of having to call Mom to let her know when they would be leaving to come back home, no thought of having to make it back in time to crawl into bed and wake up for school in the morning. He took a deep breath in through the nose and let the indescribably elaborate scent of ocean circulate through him like an intravenous drug.

He dug his fingers in the sand beside him, spread them apart, pushed and pulled the silky soft grains to and fro, when he felt his fingertips graze the warm skin of a hand next to him.

"Sorry," Roxas apologized as quickly as his hand retracted, the hot flush of embarrassment flooding his face.

Axel chuckled. "'S okay."

Roxas brushed the sand off on his pants leg and tucked his hands behind his head where they couldn't potentially humiliate him again.

The waves crashed and rolled and washed away everything they touched.

"Want one?" Axel asked, holding out the soft-pack that was quickly becoming some sort of tether between them, a metaphorical umbilical cord between progenitor and fetus.

"Sure," he responded, like he knew he probably always would. He had the thought that he would never want to tell Axel 'no', but that could be a disastrous way of thinking, and Roxas forced himself to think more like a reasonable human being and less like a Disney princess.

They smoked in silence until Axel's phone rang, breaking the tranquility.

"Well fuck my ass, it's our girl," Axel said, eyes bright. "Hello, darlin'," he said, answering the phone. "You're here? Fuckin' sweet, where are you? … The bus station? You took a bus? … Fuckin' figures... Ugh, don't, I'll pick you up in twenty minutes or something like that, hell I don't know where the bus station is... Okay, stay put, I'll come get you... Bye."

It took them an obnoxious amount of time to find the bus station, and Roxas was sure that they would be driving up to meet a very angry female. Anyone would be angry if they had to wait at a bus station for an hour and a half for their ride to come pick them up. Unreliable convenience store clerk directions were always a crap shoot, after all.

When they did meet her though, Roxas was sure that if a precise counterpart for Axel's soul existed, it was her. There were four things he noticed about her within the first three days of being in her presence. One, she never, _ever_ took off her beanie; it was a more of a plum knit sack that hung off the back of her head. Two, she smelled of clove cigarettes, coffee, and cheap perfume on a constant basis. Three, she had this excellent ability to somehow make the likes of Axel Payne arrive at a loss for words.

Four, she was as blunt and unvarnished as a cantankerous old man.

"You're short," were the first words that escaped her deceivingly delicate mouth. She stood there, smoking a mentholated clove cigarette, in front of one of the benches in front of the Greyhound station, which was permanently peppered with empty snack sized chip bags, drink bottles, and homeless people.

"So are you," Roxas replied.

Every stitch of clothing on her was dark and soft, much like her short black hair. Her expression was withdrawn and mildly acrimonious; Roxas thought that she may have a pretty decent case of chronic bitch face just like him.

"Good morning, beautiful," Axel greeted cheerily, an exaggerated smile stretched across his face like saran wrap.

"Don't fuck with me right now. Do you know how much I hate buses?" She took a long, crackling drag off her cigarette.

"Enough to not even _bother_ to hug your best friend after you haven't seen him in at least sixty years?"

"You are so stupid," Xion said, but Roxas saw her fight a smile as she threw herself into Axel's open arms. The two embraced fiercely in a way that made it hard to tell if they were friends or lovers.

"I missed you so much," Roxas heard her mumble into his jacket.

"I missed you too, baby girl," Axel said with a kiss to the top of her head, not daring to loosen his grip just yet.

Axel turned his head and looked dead at Roxas, and the look in those green eyes had his brain recalibrating everything he'd ever felt about friendship and that mysterious way humans seem to synchronize with each other, a function that Roxas never could get a good grasp on.

This was different because it was _easy_. The effortlessness had startled the boy ever since he'd looked into that now familiar face just the day before when he'd been standing on the roadside. The fact that he hadn't struggled to give a shit every time the man spoke was still something he was treating warily, like some dangerous animal that may or may not have rabies.

"Well," Axel said as he finally pulled away from the girl, "what next?"

"I've got two duffel bags of belongings, since my car crapped out the day I was going to leave, and I'm willing to assume that neither of you have much of anything to call your own, either... Actually, who exactly is this guy, anyway?" She looked at Roxas with lazy curiosity.

"This is Roxas," Axel responded. "I picked him up on the way. Don't worry, he's harmless."

"No shit," Xion said, throwing he cigarette butt on the ground.

"You never know, I could be a cold-blooded killer," Roxas said, challenging the girl.

"Yeah, and I could be a fucking monk," Xion said with a roll of her eyes.

"You two are either going to get along really well or fucking murder each other," Axel said.

If it had been anyone else in the world, Roxas would have been riled up and ready to spit venom in their eyes, but there was something about this girl that only made him feel as if he were being yanked towards her by some invisible string attached directly to his guts. She didn't anger him; he only wanted to interact with her more.

"Are you always so quick to judge?" Roxas asked, a smirk forming slowly on his face.

"Is that the kind of phase your in at this point in your life, kid?" she asked, her eyes twinkling in a way that made Roxas sure that no one had dared challenge her in a millenia. "Did mommy and daddy judge you? Are you edgy and _misunderstood_?"

"I'm not the one smoking cloves."

"_Ooh_," Axel said, looking back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match, without all of the monotony.

After a moderate, thoughtful pause, Xion spoke with a bright, beautiful smile that Roxas instantly fell in love with.

"I like him," she said, looking up at Axel.

"Me too," Axel responded.

* * *

><p>Xion had a list of rental properties for the three of them to attempt to rifle through, unanimously agree on, and sign a lease for hopefully by the end of the day. Roxas wasn't sure what the process was for all of this, but he was certain that they wouldn't be signing a lease for three bed, two bath, ocean front condo in Murrell's Inlet.<p>

At first sight of the third piece of shit house they drove by, Roxas was certain that if Axel were a dog, he would have pissed himself out of excitement.

"This one, this one, _this one_! Oh Xion please say yes, it's _perfect_."He was bouncing up and down in the driver's seat of the Jeep, Xion sitting in the passenger seat looking highly unconvinced.

"Let's look at the inside first."

"Call the landlord, right now, call him!"

Roxas looked through the tinted window at a small, fairly dingy, slightly run down house with white wash paint, black shutters (which were most likely fake, considering the windows all had iron bars over them), and a red front door. The paint seemed to be chipping and peeling on every square foot of the exterior. The grass was overgrown and threatening to invade the small front porch, and had almost nearly swallowed the small concrete walkway leading to the front steps.

"Keep your fucking shirt on," Xion said, dialing a number while Axel pulled over to park on the side of the road.

"Yes, may I speak with Mr. Brazel? Hey, my name is Xion Foster, I was calling to request some information on a house for rent on thirteen Twilight Avenue?... Well, yes, we're actually parked in front of it right now... Oh! Shit, that's convenient. Five minutes? Sounds good. We'll be here... Bye."

"Well?" Axel asked, eyes on fire.

"He lives like, literally up the road. He's coming right over to give us a little tour."

"No me gusta," Axel said, curling up his nose.

"If he seems like the nosy type, we'll keep looking."

Axel lit a cigarette and started telling stories about nosy residential advisors from USC. In one story about the RA that burst into his room and almost caught him mostly naked, snorting xanax off of his friend's tits, he explained how he craftily avoided the situation by getting on top of her, hiding the drugs with his hair, and pretending to fuck her in a room full of people. Apparently, the look on the nerdy RA's face was priceless.

Roxas heard a loud car engine pull up behind them, and he turned to see a large man with dreadlocks, sideburns, and ratty tattoos exit an old, faded blue El Camino.

"What the fuck?" Roxas mumbled. He thought landlords were supposed to be the professional, collared shirt types. He was sure he could see holes in the man's wife beater.

Xion and Axel stepped out of the Jeep immediately, while Roxas slid out slowly. He was confused, and hoped that the guy didn't ask him many questions, because there wasn't much Roxas thought he could answer truthfully, and he didn't think he could lie effectively at this point, either.

"Xion," the man said, extending a big, calloused hand towards her.

"Mr. Brazel," she replied as she shook his hand firmly, with a small smile, "it' a pleasure."

"Call me Xaldin for God's sake, I feel old enough as it is."

Roxas thought that if an overflowing glass ash tray had a sound, it would be his voice.

"Hiya, I'm Axel," the redhead said, shaking Xaldin's hand.

"And you are?" the intimidating figure asked, turning to Roxas.

"Roxas," he responded simply.

"Hm. Nice to meet you, Roxas."

"Shall we get this tour underway, or what?" Xion asked, clasping her hands together.

"Yeah, let's go on inside." Xaldin said, and with a scratch of his belly he meandered down the overgrown walkway, the trio following behind.

"It's been a while since anyone cut the grass, I can have our maintenance guy do that immediately with no charge if you decide to sign the lease today. Speaking of which, I'm having a special this month, half off the deposit if you sign within twenty-four hours. I don't do background checks or any of that bullshit, so I won't fuck you or pull any strings."

"I like this guy," Axel whispered to Xion.

"By the way," Xaldin said, stopping at the front door and fussing with a ring of keys, "as long as you don't sneak around and don't fuck with me or my rules, I won't fuck with you. If you don't do anything stupid, I won't have reason to come around. Catch my drift?"

The trio was silent for a moment, until Axel broke it.

"Note taken."

Xaldin grunted and unlocked all three of the locks on the door and stepped inside.

The house was small and old. There was wood panelling on the walls that was most likely original from the seventies, creaking hardwood floors, and dirty windows that probably hadn't been replaced in decades thanks to the iron bars.

"This is the living room, as I'm sure you guessed. That room to the right is the kitchen, as I'm sure you also guessed." The doorway to the kitchen was wide, about six feet across, and Roxas saw a white tiled floor, a sliding glass door, and the edge of a counter top. "Down the hall there's the bedroom and bathroom, you can go look inside if you'd like. Bedroom's got a walk-in closet. Washer and dryer hookups are in the kitchen."

"It smells like ball sweat and bong water in here," Axel grumbled.

"It's fucking _perfect_," Xion whispered with a smirk. She'd wandered to the sliding glass door in the kitchen that lead to a huge back yard with an in-ground pool, diving board and everything.

"Goddamn it, if those assholes don't stop tagging my _fucking_ pool," Xaldin started before yanking open the glass door and storming outside.

Colorful bursts of graffiti covered the concrete lining of the empty pool. The roman numeral XIII was the biggest piece that dominated the entire floor of the pool. Roxas tilted his head and studied the paint.

"I'll have this painted over tomorrow," Xaldin said, turning to Xion.

"No," Roxas spoke up for the first time since entering the house. "Leave it. It adds an artistic touch to the place, dontcha think?"

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Axel's eyes bore into Roxas with whole-hearted agreement.

"I think you're right, Roxas," Xion responded.

"Alright. I guess if you want Organization Thirteen's tag in your pool, be my guest..."

"That's settles it, then!" Axel proclaimed, rubbing his hands together. "When can we sign the lease?"

* * *

><p>"Okay, you <em>have<em> to pick one or the other, no rubbers allowed, and death is not an option."

"Shoot."

"Gary Busey, or the three day old corpse of Mila Kunis."

Axel hummed and leaned back onto his palms from where he sat on the cold floor."That's a good one... Wow, that's a really tough one... You think the rigor mortis would have let up at that point, or...?"

Roxas couldn't decide if he was disgusted or awe-inspired by this game and how good Xion showed herself to be at it immediately. Talking about who you'd rather fuck was supposed to be a fun discussion, but this was just... well, like Axel said, it was a tough one.

"I think full-blown putrefaction sets in after about three to four days, but I could be wrong..." Xion trailed off, chewing her lip in thought.

"Shit... Okay, okay, do I have to _look_ at Gary Busey while he fucks me?"

"Well... I guess you can close your eyes."

"And cover my ears?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Okay, dead Mila Kunis then."

"Ugh, _dude_..." Xion scoffed and shook her head.

Roxas laughed and buried his face in his hands.

"Honestly, a corpse probably _would_ be better than Gary Busey," he admitted.

"Who knows, what if the guy is a fucking god in bed?" Xion asked.

"Will you be the one to find out?" Axel asked with an eyebrow waggle.

"Actually... You know, I'd probably go for dead Mila Kunis, too."

The trio snorted and tried to get the image out of their heads.

"Okay, your turn Axel," Xion said, taking a drag from her cigarette.

They were surrounded by white candles that smelled like old lady perfume that they'd found at the Dollar General down the street. The power would be turned on sometime tomorrow, so for tonight, it was survival by candlelight and body heat. Axel's faithful air mattress was in the middle of the living room floor where the trio sat and played their games and swapped their stories. Roxas would never tire of listening to the two of them talk.

"Let's see... ahhh...," Axel flicked the ashes from his cigarette onto the floor. Roxas rolled onto one side of the air mattress to give Xion room to lie down next to him.

"I'm gonna start counting if you don't come up with something," Xion said.

"Okay, okay, Gimli from the Lord of the Rings or a donkey."

"Holy shit, Axel..."

"I will _not_ pick for this one," Roxas said, covering his flush of embarrassment with his hands.

"Hey now, I don't make the rules..."

"Gimli, fuck it, I'd rather fuck a dwarf than perform bestiality," Xion said with an eyeroll.

"Same as Xion, I guess," Roxas answered.

"Same, I bet dwarves have thick cocks-"

"What the _fuck_-"

"Your turn, Roxas!"

Roxas was shaking his head and lighting a cigarette as he made his decision.

"I'm gonna do a normal one."

"Go for it," Axel said, kicking off his shoes.

"Lana Del Rey or Miley Cyrus."

"Lana Del Rey, is that even a question?" Xion answered immediately.

"Miley Cyrus. I bet she's a fucking freak, man," Axel said. "You know, she'd probably let me lick her asshole and everything."

"What if Lana Del Rey wanted you to lick her asshole, too?"

"I'd still pick Miley."

"How?"

"Different strokes, my darling, different strokes."

Axel slithered between Xion and Roxas and laid on his back, putting his arms behind his head.

The three were quiet for a while, simply staring at the shadows on the ceiling and enjoying each other's presence.

"It's getting cold," Xion mumbled, folding her arms across her torso tightly.

"Here," Axel said, sitting up and grabbing his trashed comforter, pulling it across the three of them.

"Better?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"How 'bout you, half pint?"

Roxas turned his head towards Axel's ever-prying, exaggerated features and pulled the blanket towards his chin.

"Yeah, I'm good."

Xion reached out and grabbed a few candles that were in reach, blowing them out and leaving the room cast in the faintest of orange glows.

Axel didn't tear his eyes away from Roxas, and Roxas could have committed multiple homicide right then if only to know what the redhead was thinking in that moment.

They stayed that way for longer than what Roxas would have ever considered comfortable before this phase in his life. Roxas could feel his eyelids grow heavy with the kind of sleepiness that you just know is a prerequisite for the deepest, most restful kind of sleep.

"You can use my arm as a pillow, if you want," Axel just barely whispered.

Roxas could feel the man's warm breath caress his face. His breath smelled like an ashtray, and that was just fine with Roxas. He wouldn't have wanted him to smell any other way.

Roxas slowly shifted and scooted so that his head was resting on Axel's lean bicep.

"Are you having a good time, sport?" Axel whispered.

"Yeah. I'm..." Roxas chuckled silently and shook his head against Axel's arm. "It's stupid."

"What's stupid?"

"Me. I just feel really stupid sometimes, the way I think."

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I've never felt anything like this before. Like, I've never felt freedom like this before. It's dumb, I know-"

"No, no, it's not dumb. It's fucking brilliant. Don't let anyone make you think that your feelings are invalid, just because they don't feel the same way. It's their loss that they can't feel the way that you do."

Roxas was silent for a moment, letting Axel's words steep in his mind.

"Thank you," he replied after a few moments.

"What for?"

"For picking me up."

Roxas' chest could have opened up and erupted with a swarm of butterflies when Axel leaned his head onto his' and answered, "The fun has just begun, kiddo."


End file.
